Et Iterum
by starkblast
Summary: "Don't give him up, Scully," he begs, fingers tight on the back of her neck; their first contact in months. Foreheads meet in a shared lean against one another for support, and she blinks away her tears, wiping at his with a gentle thumb on his cheek. William coos sleepily between them. "We will keep him safe," Mulder murmurs, lips just above her ear. "I don't care what it takes."
1. Part One

A series of vignettes starting at DeadAlive with gradually altered storyline into an account of what may have happened had they made different choices with their relationship and their son; how things may have been different for them, and how history may have found ways to repeat itself. Will publish in several parts, but I'm not done writing. Review with your thoughts if you like.

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It's odd, he thinks, how out of place some things feel; small comforts that once belonged solely to him now seem foreign, jarringly displaced.

Or maybe it's him that no longer fits. After all, a body tends to acclimate to its surroundings after a while. He supposes that perhaps he'd taken on the shape of the coffin in a sense, the weight of it. A dead man is a peculiar puzzle piece to try to cram back into the already-completed landscape of the living world.

Nothing feels stranger, though, than the prominent curve of her stomach, the swell of soft, warm body beneath her shirt. Not that he has felt it, physically. But it's there between them all the same; proof that another person, however small, had moved in, scrambling the puzzle. Another life that began growing even as his was taken away from her, from them.

It's hard not to feel hollow when there is a tiny head nestled beneath her ribs, encompassed by her heartbeats as he stands five feet and a mile away, certain that he'll never feel grounded in his own body again, let alone hers.

He tries to find something to say as he watches tears gather in her eyes, but all he can do is turn away, a bitter taste creeping from the back of his tongue. His mouth and lungs and heart are embalmed with his absence, his empty gut packed with sawdust and the things he'd have told her months ago, before he was taken, before she buried him. She waits but the words stay stitched inside him, festering. They've lost their meaning, now.

XXX

"It's yours, you know."

She regards him carefully from across the couch, legs tucked beneath her and hands resting on the mound of her belly, giving it shape beneath folds of oversized sweater. He sits uncomfortably at the other end, not facing her. She'd been watching him pick despondently at some small scrap of paper from his coat pocket for several minutes before getting up the nerve to speak.

"The baby."

He raises his eyes to hers, still silent.

It's still more of a response than she's gotten in hours, so she continues, speaking softly.

"To have all my attempts fail, and then to learn I was pregnant just after you disappeared….it scared me. I started to wonder….how. As soon as the baby was developed enough for the procedure, I tested him against your DNA, just to be safe."

He studies her for a moment, something sparking in his hollow eyes.

"Him?"

Closing her eyes, she scoffs a tiny laugh at her slip. Hearing his voice has yet to stop making her heart falter.

"Or her," she corrects, though in her mind the boy already has his father's hazel eyes.

He holds her gaze, searching her eyes for something, his own expression unreadable.

"I know," he says finally, simply. "I knew."

She relaxes a bit, thankful for his stability.

"You've been so distant all week," she says quietly, reversing their roles and dropping her gaze to the hem of the sweater as she starts to pick at it. She can feel him watching her carefully.

"I thought maybe you were worried that I'd started seeing someone. That I had... replaced you."

"No," he breathes, though she can hear in his voice that it's not entirely the truth. He'd harbored doubts for just as long as it took him to do the math.

He sighs, and she thinks that maybe it is the sound of the shell he's been building up ever since his resurrection starting to crack.

"I'm sorry I've been so shut off to you, Scully," he murmurs, and her eyes are drawn back to his. It's the first time he's used her name in days. The shell cracks a little more.

"It's like…." He struggles with his words for a moment, brow furrowing slightly as he tries to think of how best to explain himself. "It's like walking into a movie theater halfway through the film. I feel like I have to sit back and watch for a minute to figure out what I missed before I can even begin to guess at what comes next."

She holds his gaze steadily for a moment, trying not to show how his words break her heart as they sink in.

"Does that make sense?" He asks softly, thinking that if anyone can possibly understand, it's her.

"Yeah," she says, giving him a teary smile. "It does."

XXX

She's moving around her apartment in the cold morning light, as fast as she can and missing the taste of coffee, when her phone rings. She frowns at the caller ID before answering.

"Mulder, I'm late for my appointment," she says distractedly as she looks for her keys. "What is it?"

"Well, that's what I was calling about, actually," he says nervously on the other end. "I'd like- I was wondering….Would it be alright if I went with you? To your appointment?"

She stops in her tracks, a little surprised and unsure how to answer.

"I mean- well, no, I wouldn't have a problem with that, I just don't have time to wait for you to get here," she says quickly, having found her keys and starting for the door.

"That's alright," he says, and hangs up.

"Muld- oh, damn it," she mutters, feeling like a bit of an ass. She'll call him back and apologize later. She hurries out the door, locking it behind her.

As she hurries out of the building, he intercepts her on the steps.

"I can drive, if you like," he says with a shy smile, jangling his keys in the air.

She bites back her own smile, shaking her head slightly at his calculated presumptuousness.

His face falls slightly. "You want to drive?" he asks quickly. "Or you'd rather I don't come?"

"No, I was-" she backpedals, feeling like an ass again. "I was just- Damn it. Yes, you drive."

XXX

He takes a copy of the sonogram, absently thinking that he'll pin it up somewhere in the office. It isn't until later, back at his apartment, that he remembers that the office isn't his anymore.

He flicks the little black and white photo restlessly between his fingers as he looks around his living room, but it doesn't feel right.

The white walls and battered furniture hold no weight with which to anchor the grainy little blob of his child growing in his partner's womb. He barely spends time here anymore anyway; it had stopped being home when it became a monument to his disappearance, to his death.

Now, in the afterlife, home is Scully.

He folds the picture carefully and tucks it in his wallet.

XXX

In the confusion of coming back from the dead to find his basement office occupied by strangers, to find himself half of the genetic code responsible for creating a child, and trying to delicately figure out the future of the bizarre little family they would be, Mulder had thought that maybe he was off the radar for a bit, that perhaps They had lost interest in him, now that he was no longer an immediate threat.

There were signs he could have seen if he'd been less distracted, but he doesn't put the pieces together until he tries to call Scully one afternoon. The chilling realization that they are still being watched comes with the barely-noticeable click behind the phone's ring, the telltale sign of a wiretap.

He's called her multiple times on her cell phone and several at her apartment, worry gnawing in the pit of his stomach. A call to the office reveals that Agent Doggett saw her this morning doing paperwork, but she must have taken a long lunch because she hasn't returned yet.

The uneasiness grows, coiling in his gut as he drives first to her apartment, then to the office. The apartment is locked and empty.

At the office, he brushes past his dislike for Doggett, questioning him about their recent cases, what had happened that morning, if Scully mentioned a doctor's appointment. Catching the barely-veiled note of panic in Mulder's voice, Doggett promises to make some calls. Mulder leaves with a curt nod of thanks.

As he waits for the elevator, he runs his hands through his hair, starting to feel frantic. For years, nothing had scared him more than the thought of losing her. But now the stakes are higher. Now, there is the double jeopardy of the life she carries as well as her own.

When the doors open, she walks right into him, then pulls back, startled. Instinctively, his hands find her shoulders, steadying her.

"Mulder, what are you-"

Before she can finish, he pulls her to his chest, hands clutching at her back in desperate relief. The swell of her abdomen is an awkward hindrance to the embrace, but he holds her tightly anyway.

"Scully," he breathes into her hair, inhaling deeply to calm himself. Her scent is cinnamon and strawberries and hibiscus tea and he thinks it might be the only thing keeping him from slipping from the earth's gravity and reeling into space.

XXX

He doesn't know how he knew how to find her, and as he waits in the uncomfortably sterile little room his mind wanders to homing devices and alien technology and the chip in her neck, and it makes him anxious so instead he thinks of intangible human connections, of Scully's seemingly unshakeable faith, and how somebody once told him that souls are like magnets.

Somehow he must have done alright because eventually mother and child are checked out with no issues, abnormalities, or assassination attempts.

She rides in the backseat with the baby carrier, unable to part with the squalling infant even by inches.

Over the mingled residual terror and exhaustion that threaten to consume him, he knows that he should want to hold the kid, to look down at his squished little face and tell Scully he's got her chin, or something, but right now all he can think about is getting them home.

In her apartment, he can't tell if she wants his help, his company, or if she'd just rather be alone with her son. Their son.

Standing by the door, ready to flee at a moment's notice if dismissed, he watches her flit about the apartment, studying her carefully. It's hard to catch, but he knows her too well to be fooled; she has no idea what she's doing, either. The thought makes him relax a little.

"Mulder," she calls softly from the bedroom, and he goes to her, unfrozen by the sound of his name on her lips.

She lies in the semi-darkness, pajama-clad above the unrumpled covers. The baby lies next to her, awake but silent, mesmerized by her face.

"I know how you feel, kid."

He hadn't meant to say it out loud.

Scully gives him a questioning glance and a smile, patting the empty other side of the bed.

He kicks off his shoes and climbs on the bed, scooting close enough to wrap his arm around her waist and press a kiss to her forehead. Together they form a cocoon around the child, and he turns his round blue eyes to Mulder. Or maybe they're green. For one fleeting moment, he thinks he might know what happiness is.

"Hey, buddy," he murmurs, tracing his finger over a satiny cheek. With somber eyes, the baby blows a spit bubble at his father before trying to cram a tiny fist into his mouth.

They both laugh, a breathy, beautiful sound in the darkness.

"William," she says softly, watching his face as he tries the name, testing to see how it feels in his mouth.

It's not conventional, by any means, but as she watches them she thinks they're all she's ever wanted. Her next words burn in the back of her throat.

"Are you going to stay?"

He looks up, knowing what she means, knowing there are a dozen other questions behind it.

He remembers the hollow feeling from when he'd been one degree removed from dead and she'd been pregnant, overflowing with life while he tried to remember what it felt like to breathe.

"Tonight," he replies softly, and he hates himself for having thought, those short weeks ago, that he couldn't possibly feel worse.

They lie in silence, clutching each other tightly where they can reach across the little body between them, as if their desperate love can pass through him, imparting on hours-old William the knowledge that yes, for this one night, he had a whole family.

When Scully begins to drift, the weariness of childbirth taking its toll, she tells him tiredly that he can't leave the baby in the bed while they sleep.

He presses a kiss to her jaw, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and tells her that he doesn't intend to sleep. He watches her until her eyes droop closed and her breathing slows, then rolls onto his back, lifting the also-sleeping baby onto his chest. William coos a sleepy sound and nestles into his father's warmth, one tiny fist curling around Mulder's finger.

Too soon, morning comes.

Souls are like magnets, he thinks, and if Scully's is strong enough to drag him unknown miles across the surface of the earth, William's pulls with enough force to tear away a part of him as he leaves. The moment he shuts her door behind him, he is less than half of whom he had been.


	2. Part One - Chapter 2

He exists in dark, miserable solitude, kept alive only by sparsely-exchanged emails, brief, soundless conversations of little substance, because certainly her accounts are still being monitored for any clue of his whereabouts.

He lives in constant fear that he did the wrong thing by leaving and that as soon as They run out of other avenues of pursuing him, They will turn to Scully and the baby to draw him out of the woodwork.

He also lives in constant fear that he was right, and every time he rounds an unknown corner there is the possibility that he will be killed or taken and that instead of growing up with a father who left to protect him, William will grow up with a father who died alone in the desert with no hope and no answers.

He dreams of them every night; sometimes reliving those few happy hours, waking to feel fleetingly whole, but more often he has nightmares of what could happen to them, waking in a cold sweat, shaking and gasping.

Tonight, he dreams of Scully sobbing to herself on the corner of her couch, giving wide berth to the spot where he used to sit. In his crib, William cries fitfully, distressed by his mother's wretched state.

After several painful minutes, she goes to him, her face a mask of anguish even as she wipes her tears away.

"It's ok, baby," she chokes as she lifts him from the crib, holding him tightly to her chest. "We're going to get you a new home tomorrow, far away from all these terrible people." She sniffs, and William quiets, looking up at her. "We're going to get you a new Mommy and Daddy who can keep you safe."

XXX

She wakes suddenly, into perfect clarity, unsure what pulled so strongly to draw her from unconsciousness. It feels oddly like deja vu, until the looming figure in the dark makes her bolt upright in bed, reaching toward the nightstand for her gun.

"Shhh…" The figure breathes, and her hand stills. From his arms, the baby mews softly at his own disrupted sleep.

She wants to yell, to chastise him for risking himself by coming, to pull him down on the bed and cover him completely, absorbing his very essence and hiding him from the world, just the three of them.

But she knows why he came. It seems impossible, but she knows.

Sitting on the bed beside her, he clutches William to his chest, rocking the boy back to sleep with a look of desperation she can make out even in the dark. Or maybe it is coming off him in waves.

"You're going to give him away," Mulder accuses, his voice fragile and cutting like a shard of glass. She doesn't ask how he knew this, but her gut twists at his barely disguised tone of betrayal.

She wants to reach for him, for them both, but can't. The man has had so few moments with his son it would be cruel to interject herself now, when so few moments remain. Her lip trembles.

"Mulder," she finally chokes, collapsing into herself like a dying star. She holds her ribs tightly, rocking slightly as she feels herself implode, as if she can hold together at the seams by sheer force of will.

He can't watch her suffer, so he disentangles one arm from the baby to wrap behind her back, pulling her against his side, their son between them.

She chokes a sob into his collarbone, tears running down her neck and into William's downy brown hair.

A shuddering gasp of breath as he tightens his hold tells her that he is crying, too. As has happened too many times already, their saltwater mingles in a desperate press of skin.

"Don't give him up, Scully," he begs, fingers tight on the back of her neck, their first contact in months. "Please don't give him up."

Foreheads meet in a shared lean against one another for support, and she blinks away her tears, wiping at his with a gentle thumb on his cheek.

"You don't know," she whispers finally. "You can't know how hard it has been. I can't keep him safe anymore. I live in constant fear that he'll be taken from me like you were. I can't raise our son-"

He stops her with a gentle shushing noise, intended also to soothe William's fitful stirrings. Mulder bounces the baby gently and Scully sinks against him, trying to subdue her panic.

"We can keep him safe, Dana," he murmurs, lips just above her ear. "I don't care what it takes. I'm not leaving you and we're not leaving him."

Not for the first time, she thinks of how it would feel to place her son in another woman's arms. To bear the scars of motherhood but no longer be a mother.

Not for the hundredth time, she wonders if she can close another coffin lid, sprinkle frozen dirt into his grave again and survive it. Maybe, she thinks hollowly, it will be summer next time I bury him.

He believes that maybe this is his one chance to right so many wrongs, to give her a ghost of the life he'd unwittingly stolen in the first moment they met.

They give no voice to their hopes or fears, only clutching each other in the darkness.

XXX

Waking up beside her, limbs entangled that first morning is so surreal that at first he doesn't trust his own senses, warily remembering a fairytale life he once lived in the confines of his own mind while his body lay strapped to a cold metal table.

He decides that if it is an illusion, he'd like to stay here anyway. He watches her sleep, reaching to tuck away a lock of hair.

After a while she blinks awake, seeming confused until she meets his eyes. Her lips turn up, but the smile is sad even for her, a woman whose constant affair with tragedy has turned her hard and sharp at the edges.

He brushes across her lips with his thumb, and her expression warms a little.

"Is this real?"

If anyone will tell him the truth, it's her.

She laughs once, softly, and somehow it doesn't sound like a sob.

"God, I hope so."


	3. Part One - Chapter 3

He'd known even before he had fully awoken that the dream was real, and had flown to her in the night without a second thought, bringing nothing with him and taking time for only the barest precautions.

When he left, she'd done her best to hide traces of his presence from view, just in case, so the only clothes that remained tucked away in her bottom drawer were some sweatpants and an old grey tshirt. They'd survived the purge because they'd been dirty, and when she picked them up off the floor the second day he was gone, his scent on the fabric had been enough to bring her to her knees.

For the first week, they decide it isn't worth the risk to go out and buy him clothes, so he alternately washes the sweatpants and the clothes he'd come in. Not that it matters, since he doesn't leave the apartment.

Nor does he mind. Eternally grateful to be home, he remains in physical contact with one or both of them as much as he can. He also knows the risk of his return, and keeps his gun within reach.

After they lie in bed all morning that first day, soaking each other up, filling each other's hollow places with softly - spoken assurances and gentle touches, Scully finally tugs him up and they move to the living room. He stands back and watches with all the fervent yearning of the past five months as she lifts William from his crib, settling onto the couch and and pulling her shirt aside to expose a breast.

She murmurs motherly nonsense noises as he feeds, and Mulder makes coffee, still slightly dazed that he's there, half-afraid that if he looks away for too long the dream will end and he will wake up in the desert again, and in some nameless town anywhere else in the country, a happy, normal couple will be settling in with his son while Scully tries to rationalize, tries to forgive him, tries to do anything but feel as she crumbles and breaks into a thousand pieces.

XXX

The first day back is a Saturday, so staying indoors and quietly talking on the couch, William between them, is almost normal; at least in the sense that it raises no suspicions. Later in the day, Scully makes some calls to get the rest of the week off- their situation is delicate and she does not for a moment trust it to work out easily. The idea of leaving both halves of her entire world unprotected in the same place while she goes to work is unthinkable.

At one point the phone rings, startling them both, but it is only the adoption agency, calling in response to her absence at what should have been the surrender of child to social services, and in turn to his new parents.

Scully hands Mulder the baby, retreating to a quiet corner of the apartment to explain that she would no longer be following through.

Mulder stays on the couch, rocking William anxiously and trying not to eavesdrop. Though he remains quiet, a fiercely territorial thing rears up within him, selfishly loathing the people who would have taken his son, despite the heartbreak he knows they will feel when they hear of Scully's changed mind. He has to measure his breathing as the feral instinct to protect surges through his long - numb veins, terrified of losing them again. When Scully returns he takes her hand tightly, and neither of them speak of it.

Afterward, she makes a covert communique to Walter Skinner, and several hours later he arrives with a quiet knock, knowing nothing other than that Scully needs something. She peers into the hall behind him before opening the door all the way, gesturing at him to come in quickly.

He waits to speak for a moment, and she calls softly into the next room.

"It's just Skinner."

He's about to ask her what's going on when Mulder steps into the room, the baby tucked against his chest with one arm, coming to stand behind Scully. Skinner's first thought is what a beautiful family they would be if only things were normal. But despite the joy of their reunion, Mulder and Scully both have a sunken look about them. Even the kid is eerily quiet, having apparently picked up on his parents' somber demeanors.

Seeing them standing together like this, he blinks, questioning eyes falling on Scully.

"Dana," he says slowly, unsure how much to divulge about the adoption in front of Mulder. "Does this mean….do you still need my help with the- with the other matter?"

It's a miserable attempt at subterfuge, and Mulder cracks a smile watching his old boss stammer. Scully smiles a little too, and shakes her head.

"No," she says with audible relief. "We're going to try this. But…"

She trails off, and Mulder picks up for her.

"But for obvious reasons we don't want to broadcast my homecoming," he says with a ghost of his old sardonicism. "I might be holed up here for a while, so I'm going to need some essentials." He shrugs apologetically. "Scully would go out and get what I need, but if she's being watched by anybody who hasn't already figured out I'm here, it would be a dead giveaway."

Skinner sighs, but only for show. He would do the damn dry cleaning if it helped them stay safe and whole for just a little while longer. He promises to make a run for them first thing tomorrow, as long as they come up with a list.

Mulder grins, bouncing the baby a little. "Mostly big boy socks," he says. "And probably some little boy diapers. Or is it the other way around?" He makes a face and William giggles.

XXX

The first night back is all tension, raw emotion channeled into every electrically-charged touch.

They need each other, desperately and in so many ways, but after months apart they have to relearn the language they'd only barely become fluent in before he was taken.

He watches her silently and intensely, like she's the last real thing on the planet. She puts the baby to sleep and steps close to where he sits, for once the taller partner. She brings her hands up under his jaw, tracing from his chin to his ears before tilting his face up to her kiss.

It is slow only for a moment, quickly turning wild and ragged until they both break off, panting, afraid to lose control too quickly. The are both still too fragile for that, so she takes him by the hand and leads him to the bathroom. She runs the water hot and slowly pulls away his clothes as the little room fills with steam.

With each piece of clothing she sheds, she stops to run careful hands over the skin beneath, relearning his curves and his edges, cataloguing every scar and remembering how it got there. He has a couple new ones, on his right bicep and across his ribs; these she lingers at before claiming with gentle presses of her lips. Maybe she'll ask about them later. Maybe she'd rather not know.

He follows her movements with reverent eyes, neither interfering nor reciprocating. He knows why she needs this. He needs it, too.

When he stands naked before her she stills, baring herself to him, and it is his turn to rediscover her. Her gaze is pure trust and devotion and it makes his throat tighten as he pulls her shirt over her shoulders.

Though her belly is still soft from pregnancy, the thinness she had never fully been able to shake after her cancer is starting to return. He knows it is from the stress of his absence and hopes that he can nurse the fullness back to her figure, the glow of life back to her skin.

He touches the spots where her skin remembers its roundness when she had carried William, trying not to ache at the thought of all he has missed. She tugs him under the stream of the water and they stand together, silently letting the scalding current melt away their hurts and doubts.

She turns him into the stream, and as the steaming water runs over his chest, she lathers his back with a soap that smells like rain. She scrubs at his skin as if she can send his sins, his sorrows, his guilt, all spiraling down the drain with the lingering desert dust.

His touch is gentler, letting his fingers run softly over soapy slopes of skin. He goes slowly, trying not to think that he is memorizing the feel of her in case he has to go without it again.

He knots a towel around his waist and wraps her in a fluffy spare blanket from the closet. They lie curled against each other on the bed, breathing each other deeply. After the careful mapping in the shower, it does not take them long to remember how they're supposed to feel together.

Faces clutched in each other's hands, they press together, skin devouring skin until they forget where he ends and she begins.

Their joining isn't rushed or frantic, but when he enters her she holds him desperately against her, feeling finally whole again. Despite the tears that pool between her cheek and his neck, she urges more, needing it. Needing him. He acquiesces with a gasping, ragged kiss that tells her he knows. Too well, he knows.

Afterward, they sleep as they fall, entangled, unwilling to be two separate entities again just yet.


	4. Part One - Chapter 4

It becomes apparent after several weeks that their current living situation is not conducive to subterfuge, and in the rare daylight hours that William sleeps, they begin to search for a new place to live.

In the end, it is Skinner who finds them their refuge. With Scully trying to maintain a low profile and Mulder staying out of sight entirely, he has been their only help. Tirelessly, he arranges the entire thing, pulling strings to have Mulder's sizeable inheritance from his loveless parents quietly transferred to an alias account and used to purchase a creaking, forgettable house in rural Virginia.

A false couple even make the show of moving in, furnishing the place with an eclectic assortment of furniture and kitchenwares by daylight. Later that week, under cover of night, Scully drives a new SUV with her fugitive partner and their impossible child away from the city lights and into the dusty, star-spotted country. They've brought with them a tiny trailer of their own belongings, having had the improbable optimism to put the rest into storage.

Pulling up to the darkened property, they both fall still, breathing in the severity of their new life together. William sleeps soundly in the backseat, oblivious.

Mulder watches his partner from the passenger seat, knowing she is afraid when she doesn't turn to his gaze. After a long moment, he rouses her with a hand on her knee.

"Come on," he murmurs, taking the lead by getting out of the car, gathering up the sleeping baby, and moving around to open her door.

Silently they do a lap of the little house, first finding the nursery and laying William down in his new crib. Mulder lets his partner lead the way through the unfamiliar halls, his own attention to the rooms and furnishings coming secondary as he watches her. He reads her thoughts in her body language as she delicately moves around the house as if she were breaking and entering, an intruder in someone else's home.

He falls back as she picks at the curling corner of the terrible kitchen wallpaper, feeling sorrow and self-loathing build within him as he thinks of all that she has endured, everything she has lost or given up for him. Because of him.

For the thousandth time, he catches himself almost wishing that she had never knocked on his basement door, carrying on instead with the life that would have kept her safe and whole. _Almost._ He loves her too selfishly for that.

She turns when she senses he's no longer behind her, her face unreadable until she sees the pain on his.

"Scully-" he starts before she can reach for him, feeling hideously undeserving of her comfort. She stills, waiting.

"I know this isn't what you wanted," he says quietly, not quite meeting her eyes. "You've sacrificed so much to make this work. I…" he trails off miserably, letting his head droop and his shoulders slump under the weight of everything he can't find the words for.

A moment later he feels her step close, her small, warm hands cupping his face and tilting it up just enough to look down at her. He closes his eyes at her touch but her voice draws them back open.

"Mulder, _you_ are what I want." She presses a careful kiss to the corner of his mouth. "This. Us."

A wordless murmur resonates from his throat at the feel of her lips.

"And what have I sacrificed?" she continues softly. "My apartment? Melissa's killers lived there. Donnie Pfaster lived there. My cancer lived there. And you know what? They can keep it."

Mulder lets out a shaky breath, and she presses closer into the space that he has allowed to open up.

"That place is nothing compared to what I almost did sacrifice. We'll make a new home here, Mulder. You, me, and William. Away from all the ghosts."

Her words fill him with love and desperation and need, so he takes her face in his hands and kisses her back with a drunken fervor. Her response is intense and immediate, and he wastes no time in hoisting her up onto the kitchen counter where she can wrap her legs around his hips and they can devour each other's lips without reaching.

Mulder has the brief thought that they don't even know where the bedroom is as he works the button on her pants, but they clearly have no intention of finding it right now. Moments later Scully gives an intoxicating gasp as he thrusts inside her, and all rational thought flies from his mind, not to be found again until they collapse, panting, against the newly-broken kitchen counter.

 _Add it to the list of things that need fixing_ , he muses as he lifts a protesting Scully into his arms, marvelling at how light she is and thinking about home and thresholds and the uniquely indefinable nature of their relationship.

When he finds the bedroom, he makes a show of walking her to the bed, placing her in the center of it, and pressing her down to the pillows with a kiss before crawling in beside her. Under the covers, he wraps himself around her and, for the first time in his recent memory, falls immediately, soundly asleep.

XXX

"I can't tell you what's going on, Mom, not right now," he hears her say as she paces the living room, trying to pick up toys and clothes as William crawls along on the carpet behind her, losing his left sock for the fifth time in as many minutes and waving a sticky plastic teething ring with unfathomable enthusiasm.

Mulder watches the scene with tired amusement for a moment before bending to scoop his son off the floor, gently prying the lint-adorned baby chew toy from William's fingers.

Maggie must have rebutted with something to the tune of 'I want to see my grandson', because after a moment Scully sighs apologetically. He can't hear the murmured conversation very well over William's pouting at the loss of his giant plastic Froot Loop, but after a minute she resurfaces, looking troubled.

"Your mom always knows when something's up," he offers, though it is hardly a reassurance. Their lack of a proper family dynamic doesn't often bother her, but it does when she has to lie to her mother.

"She does." Scully sighs, handing William a clean teething ring.

"You're going to see her?" He knows they can't risk her coming here.

"Yes."

"You're taking William?"

She pauses. "Yes."

He turns away under the pretext of setting William in the playpen, not wanting her to see his anxiety at the idea. It will be the first time he's been separated from both of them at the same time since he returned. Since those painful, lonely months he had lived without either of them.

Worse, he has more than ample reason to be afraid.

Mere weeks ago, Scully had been followed from work to the grocery store, where two men had attacked her in the darkening parking lot. She'd managed to kick the unidentified weapon out of one man's hand before the second delivered a near-concussive blow the side of her skull.

Somehow, scrambling on the cold, gritty concrete, she'd managed to draw her gun. Her shot went wide, but in combination with civilians drawn to the noise, it was enough to send her assailants running. With shaky hands, she'd retrieved the object she'd kicked to the dirt; a full, unlabelled syringe.

Ignoring the attempts of helpful bystanders to examine her head wound, she'd fled the scene, not stopping until she burst through the door of the house and locked it behind her, panting.

Her terrified eyes had searched for Mulder and the baby, but he was already there, moving quickly to her side, his own eyes flashing with protective anger at the blood that ran freely along her cheek and into her hair.

The next day, Scully had been able to track the syringe and its contents (a peculiar and potent sedative) to a government hospital in the DC area, but no farther. It had been a hauntingly familiar reminder that despite their efforts, they are far from safe.

Now, Mulder bites his tongue, trying not to show his fear that the encounter will be repeated.

She knows him too well to be fooled, but can do nothing beside lie with empty assurances.

"We'll be fine, Mulder."

Unable to speak, he nods, forcing a tight smile.

That weekend, Scully packs up the Explorer with William's diaper bag and a handful of clean onsies, a thermos of coffee for the drive, and her own overnight bag, just in case.

"We'll probably be back this evening," she had assured him as he had sullenly watched her pack her toothbrush. "If not, I'll call to let you know."

Now, he waits on the porch as she stuffs William's tiny feet into his functionless, albeit adorable miniature Converse sneakers.

"Be good for your grandma, kid," Mulder says as he takes the baby from his partner, pressing his lips to the crown of William's head before strapping him into his carseat.

"Da!" William gurgles, flailing his little arms happily at his father. Probably due to the fact that it doesn't happen often, William loves it when he gets to be in the car.

Mulder can't help but smile. 'Da' was a recent development, and while it made Mulder endlessly happy, Scully loved to rain on his parade by citing infant lingual development and the fact that every kid's first word is something along the same lines.

"That's right, buddy," Mulder agrees, poking his son good-naturedly in the belly before turning to his partner.

They're running a little late, and Scully isn't in the mood for affection, trying to brush past him to the driver's seat. Mulder catches her arm, pulling her back to him.

"She's not going anywhere, Scully," he says patiently. "You can be five minutes late."

"More like forty-five, at this point," she says exasperatedly, but doesn't pull away.

"Hey." His hands find her shoulders and she stills, looking up at him.

"I know this is just me being paranoid, Scully, but _please_ be careful," he tries not to sound too desperate, but she hears it anyway. "It's going to drive me crazy not being with you two."

"I'll be careful," she promises. "And I want you to promise me you won't try to sneak over and check on us."

Mulder sighs. The thought had certainly crossed his mind. But if Scully and William were actually not in any danger, his presence would certainly change that. It really was best for him to stay behind, but it didn't mean he felt any better about it.

"I won't."

He pulls her to his chest and leans to kiss her cheek.

Scully gives him an obliging squeeze before ducking into the car, where William has begun to grow impatient.

"I'll call you before we leave."

X

Her call comes eight hours later, breaking his eight-hour streak of cleaning and pacing. His heart sinks a little when she tells him they're staying the night.

"Tell your mom I say hi," he says with a bit of an edge to his voice, trying to focus on the sound of William giggling in the background.

She promises to be back first thing in the morning, and hangs up.

He used to thrive on solitude, accepting his weary bachelor lifestyle with barely a second thought, because he was too occupied with his work to make time or emotional space for any kind of interpersonal relationship. Now, he doesn't know what to do with himself without them.

Scully, he could live without for a few hours or days at a time, but the kid- the kid has become his reason to breathe. He thinks he might go crazy if he stays in the empty house a moment longer so he sets the phone on the counter, heading for the door without another thought.

X

A little over an hour later, Scully steps quietly through the front door, a sleeping William held limply in her arms. It was a long and tiring day, but her weary heart warms at the anticipation of Mulder's face when he sees his little family home a day early.

She'd had every intention of staying the night, until she'd heard the way he'd deflated entirely on the phone. Cooped up in the house for months, she and William were all Mulder had to keep himself sane. She'd made a split-second decision to leave Maggie's after all and surprise her partner at home.

Only it doesn't appear that he _is_ home.

"Mulder?" she calls into the dark, still house, softly so as not to wake her sleeping son.

When there is no response, she moves to the bedroom; perhaps he just went to sleep out of lack of anything else to do. But the bed is empty.

"Mulder?" she calls again, louder this time.

A quick lap of the rest of the house reveals no Mulder, and no clue as to where he might have gone.

Trying not to panic, Scully sets William in his crib before beelining for the phone. Her hard-learned 'expect the worst' instinct makes her feel at her hip for her gun, which she had worn out today just in case. Its weight is hardly comforting as she shakily dials Mulder's cell.

"Damn it," she mutters when he doesn't pick up. "Mulder, where are you? Call me."

Her next call is to her mother. Though he'd promised not to, she can still rationalize him showing up at Maggie's in the middle of the night to make sure nothing has happened in the hour since they'd spoken. Maggie hasn't seen or heard from him, but promises to call if she does.

A final, desperate call goes to Skinner, who sounds just as alarmed as Scully at the news. He offers his help, but she wants to try to find him on her own first.

Biting back the dread that rises like bile from her stomach, Scully packs her son back into the car, where he protests fitfully at being roused from his sleep.

"Shhh, buddy, it's ok," she croons from the driver's seat as she pulls down the driveway, not knowing where she intends to go. "We just have to find your dad."

As her headlights sweep around the last curve of their long driveway, Scully catches a glimpse of a figure darting into the bushes. Her heart pounding, she throws the Explorer into park and dashes out into the driveway, drawing her gun.

"I'm armed!" She yells into the small stand of trees, knowing that there is nowhere else for the intruder to run without being exposed. "Show yourself!"

A man steps out from behind a thick oak tree, hands slightly raised.

"It's just me," Mulder's voice comes, slightly out of breath. "Scully, what's going on? Why aren't you at your mom's?"

With an audible sigh of relief, Scully lowers the gun, switching the safety on and tucking it back into her hip holster.

"Jesus, Mulder," she breathes, running a hand over her face. He picks his way through the tall grass, gripping her shoulder when he reaches her. Despite her relief, she glares up at him.

"Where were you?"

Mulder looks confused. "I needed to get out of the house, so I went for a run. I stayed in the woods mostly, nobody saw me. I was just heading back because my cell phone died."

He glances at the still-running Explorer behind her, his face concerned.

"Scully, what's going on? Where's William?"

Her hand finds his arm, needs the touch to reassure them both that everything is fine.

"He's in the car. Nothing's going on, Mulder, I-" she sighs, realizing what a mess she caused. "I couldn't stay at my mom's tonight, not after hearing how you sounded on the phone. I wanted- I was going to surprise you. By coming home tonight. Except you weren't there, and you weren't answering my calls, so I panicked. I was going to look for you, just now."

"Oh, shit," Mulder murmurs, pulling her against his chest. "I'm sorry, Scully. Come on, let's get back to the house."

Despite still having plenty of nervous energy for the jog up the long driveway, he moves around to the passenger seat. Inside the car William continues to cry, Mulder's presence doing nothing for the fact that he's been taken from his warm crib late at night.

Unable to hold back a small smile, Mulder reaches back to offer an ineffective hand of comfort.

"I feel you, kid. Mom's lousy at surprises."

XXX

An urgent, whispered phone call from Skinner at 11:30 has them packed and out the door by midnight.

It's unclear what exactly the threat is, but they move without hesitation, throwing several day's worth of clothes and food into bags, strapping William into his car seat, and leaving their little house behind them on the darkened road.

The first few days are tense; they keep their weapons close at all hours and sleep in shifts, one always watching over William and the other.

They don't hear from Skinner, but they know to assume the worst and keep moving.

The fourth night finds them the lone occupants of a small motel a mile outside of some forgettable town in Pennsylvania.

Scully sleeps lightly on one of the small beds, fifteen - month old William sprawled beside her. They don't currently have a travel crib for him, so whoever is on watch duty makes sure he doesn't roll off. Mulder sits close beside the bed, his fingers trailing lightly atop his son's downy head.

They'd eaten microwaved raviolis for dinner while watching the news, scanning for any reports that might hint at a larger crisis, but nothing had appeared, and the night had passed.

As Mulder sits in the cozy room with his tiny family, it feels so strangely like old times that he is almost lulled into a shallow sleep.

His eyes have only just begun to drift closed when a shadow passes in front of the window, blurred by the blinds.

Instantly on alert, he sits up, his hand slipping from his son to his gun. The barest of touches rouses Scully, though she remains still as her eyes study him, then scan the room for danger.

"Stay here," he whispers, his voice a cold breath in the dark. "Get William ready. Just in case."

Her nod is silent, her lioness eyes flashing as she reaches for her own weapon.

He slips through the door with a tactical caution he hasn't used since his FBI days, but the slinking, predatory movements come back to him easily as he scans the darkened lot.

A rustling branch draws him to the corner by the last unit, but at the second to last room, the door swings quickly outward, catching him by surprise and knocking him off balance. The tall, burly man is upon him before he can regain his feet, gripping his wrists and forcing him against the wall. His gun is knocked away in the struggle.

Thinner and quicker, Mulder is just barely able to pull away, scoring a quick blow to his assailant's face. As the man crumples, a frantic glance back to the motel room door reveals a second attacker, gun leveled and ready to force entry.

Scully.

 _William._

They are his only thoughts as he charges the gunman, tackling him away from the door.

The second man is smaller than his partner, fast like Mulder, but armed. They roll across the concrete, locked in a struggle for the gun.

"Scully!" He manages to yell as a thick hand crushes his throat against the pavement. "Run!"

She's out the door in moments, SIG Sauer in her outstretched right hand and William's carrier in her left.

The momentary distraction is enough for Mulder to wrench the gun from the other man's hand. The shot and scream that echo as the bullet tears through the unknown man's shoulder wake William, and he starts to cry.

Scully's already at the car as he peels himself off the cold concrete, already strapping the wailing baby in as he runs to her. Her eyes are wide with fear but they find his and he's there, telling her to get in and drive, they have to go.

Bruised, scared, but together; that's how they had gotten by for almost a year. And they come close to getting out unscathed again, Scully's hand on William and Mulder's hand on Scully, just before he sees the burly man move behind her, gun raised point blank to the square foot beside him that contains his partner's chest and their son's wide-eyed face.

Unthinking, he shoves her roughly to the ground, slamming the car door and throwing himself in front of it.

The bullet pierces his right side and he slumps back with a groan, gritting his teeth for long enough to fire two quick shots into the swirling void of parking lot. One of them finds their mark, disabling the shooter and giving Scully the half second she needs to regain her balance and finish him.

 _No_ , she is screaming as she hauls him back to his feet, lifts him somehow into the passenger seat, bleeding and spiraling into nonexistence. _No, Mulder! Hold on, Goddammit!_

He lies back in the seat but splinters of rib are lodged in his stomach, his lung.

William.

Unsure why he can't see, he reaches blindly for the boy. Scully grips his bloody hand, guiding it back to the car seat as she careens down the darkened highway, speeding vainly for the hospital. Her voice is tremulous as she calls for an intercept ambulance. William is crying but Mulder can feel his softness, his warmth.

 _He's safe,_ she gasps, clutching at him like he is her lifeline, and not the other way around. _You saved him._

Her hand against his wound cannot stem the flow of life that pulses out of it, but in his numbness it is a welcome weight. He tries to hold her gaze, tries to speak her name, but the gestures are trapped inside his mind as his body fails him. Her watery, determined eyes are on the road, tearing through the night to save him even as he slips silently away.

They are minutes from the hospital when she realizes, lurches to the shoulder to try to revive him.

Her hands pound against his chest, force quickly-congealing blood through unresponsive veins. His ribs crack beneath her desperate ministrations. Her lips close around his in the cruelest irony of their short-lived love, but his chest rises no more than the volume of the trembling breath she forces into his lungs.

Finally she sinks to the cold gravel, choking strangled sobs into bloodied palms.

On only their third call, two young paramedics find a sniffling baby clutching his dead father's hand. His mother sits numbly in muddy grass beside the freeway, so deep in shock that they fear William will be an orphan before they can get her to the ICU.

But Dana Scully has lived through this before.

She wakes in the hospital alone, and for a long, selfish moment, wishes she had died.

XXX

X

X

X

END PART ONE (MULDER)

CONTINUED IN PART TWO (You guessed it: SCULLY)


	5. Part Two

It is unseasonably temperate for the time of year in the low, rolling hills, but the warm air stings almost worse than the cold had. She remembers bitterly wishing that it would be summer this time, and hates herself all over again.

Her short heels sink into the mud and she wonders why she even wore them. He wouldn't have cared.

Only two other people had been left to mourn with her; Walter Skinner and her mother. Feeling like their sympathies are hollow, the same words spoken not so long ago at his first funeral, they stand back, worried and weary.

The sun on her face is just another cruelty; burying him is no more survivable than it had been in the winter, with snow falling and the ground freezing as they sank him into it. Despite the warm air, her heart is ice.

Oblivious to his dead father, William coos against her chest. Even his weight and warmth are not enough to hold her together, so she hands him to her mother and sinks into the passenger seat, adrift in her grief.

XXX

Her fear is the only thing that keeps her upright. For the first several weeks, she does her best not to leave the house, forcing her last trusted contacts to come to her when they want to talk. Her mother and Skinner watch with anxious concern as she withdraws from the few remaining ties she once held to the Real World.

Fully convinced now of the mysterious threat that has hung over her daughter all these years, Maggie makes the painful mistake of suggesting that William go to live with his Uncle Bill for a while, to keep him safe. Scully's outburst at this is so full of fear and rage that for one fleeting moment, it eclipses her grief.

But despite her stubbornness, her sleepless nights and her every paranoid precaution, the threat has all but vanished.

Perhaps they never cared about her or William at all, besides as a means of getting to Mulder. Perhaps she is stricken enough by the loss of him that she is no longer considered a functional adversary. Perhaps they are simply waiting, though for what she can't imagine.

Slowly, she begins gathering up the remaining pieces of herself, pressing them carefully like flowers between the pages of a book. And little by little she starts the breathe again. Because she cannot afford to be lost for long. William is already missing so much, she won't let him have an emotional invalid for a mother.

Every time she feels herself start to split along any of the thousand hairline fractures that comprise her battered soul, she goes to him, finds the resemblance he bears to his absent father, breathes in the comfort of the fact that he exists. Their miracle child.

 _I have William_ , she tells herself every day, and though it doesn't even begin to fill the gaping hole the Mulder left behind in her chest, it is enough to get her out of bed in the morning, enough to make her eat, enough to keep her from turning into dust and filtering down through the floorboards to join him beneath the earth.

X

X

X

X

I don't normally post such short chapters, but I felt like I needed to post quicker than I can write after leaving you guys with dead Mulder.

*** To anyone who is still with me after that, this author's note is to let you know that this story isn't going to be sad forever.

(HINT: there will be a part three)

Part two might take longer than I thought, because I'm having kind of a hard time writing Scully. I can write Mulder for days, but for some reason Scully gets me stuck. Argh.

Anyway, please review with your thoughts so far!


	6. Part Two - Chapter 2

"Scully."

His voice is little more than a breath in the stillness of the room, drifting from behind her in the cold, filtered light of almost-dawn that creeps in through the tattered curtains.

"Mmmm."

Still half-asleep, she doesn't turn to him, relishing in his feather-light touch at her back. The delicate, lazy circles traced across her shoulder blades bring a fierce, aching sense of comfort, though she can't think of why she'd needed it.

A tiny smile starts on her lips as his warm breath stirs the hair at the back of her neck, and she rolls over, eyes closed, reaching to snuggle against his chest.

With a feeling akin to missing that last step on a staircase and lurching prematurely to the ground, she falls into nothing but more empty bed, her hands clutching the cold, unruffled covers on what she still considers his side of the mattress, even after almost a year.

Her eyes open and she feels herself sink, the fleeting moment of bliss crushed under the realization that he isn't there.

He's gone. Just as he has been all this time.

She squeezes her eyes shut, cursing herself for letting her dreams bleed over into reality. Her heart aches at the thought of his breath on her skin, her name murmured with such familiar adoration, fingertips playing across her back. It had felt so real.

She presses her face into the pillow, taking a deep, shaky breath and imagining that she can smell him on the fabric.

Then she drags herself out of bed, because as real as it felt, it wasn't, and because even if only for their son, she has a life to live.

Sooner or later, she'll have to learn to move on.

But several weeks later, he speaks to her again.

She stands at the sink in the kitchen, swirling the dinner dishes in the soapy water while William babbles toddler-sentences to his favorite toy truck in the living room.

"Scully."

Her hands still, her whole body going rigid at the sound of her softly-spoken surname.

In the haze of morning, her mind still clouded by sleep, it had been easier to pretend she'd dreamed him.

The warm dishwater suddenly feels like ice and she stares down at the falling bubbles, terrified to turn and be met again with nothing.

"I miss you."

The words are louder, though his voice is still soft, his cadence intimate. She squeezes her eyes shut, fighting the terrible need to hear him speak again.

 _It isn't real_ , she tells herself, but in case it is, she shakes her head.

"Don't," she whispers, feeling herself begin to break again, when she had just so carefully managed to put herself back together. "Please."

But she is unable to stop herself from opening her eyes and turning to the place where he used to stand, and there he is, a shadow of his former self leaning against the cabinets with a sad smile on his lips.

The glass she had forgotten she was holding shatters when it hits the floor, soapy fragments skittering in a firework pattern across the tile.

She can't remember if she blinked, or looked down at the glass, or blacked out, but when she can form a solid thought again, it is that he is gone. The corner with the cabinets is empty.

She takes a shaky, gasping breath, reaching for the counter to steady herself.

 _Get a grip, Dana,_ she thinks. _He's gone. Stop projecting him into every lonely moment or you're going to go mad._

She has collected her thoughts enough to move toward the closet for a broom when William toddles into the doorway, his alarmingly intelligent young eyes surveying the kitchen in slight puzzlement before blinking up at his mother questioningly.

"Da?"

Scully's heart goes cold all over again, and she is unable to stop the sob that tears suddenly up her throat.

 _We'll make a new home here_ , she'd told him that first night in the house, just before they'd christened it by making love on the counter she now clutches to keep from falling.

 _You, me, and William. Away from all the ghosts._

God knows nothing had ever been that simple for them.

For weeks she walks around the house in a trance, glancing up at every flicker of movement, holding her breath at every whisper of sound. In a moment of desperation, she goes to her therapist, seeking validation that what she'd seen and heard was real.

"It's a common part of grieving, Dana," Kathy says with a sad, reassuring smile. "If you're not seeing him any more, that's good. It means you're starting to heal. To move on."

With a hollow nod of thanks, she leaves, biting back tears as she moves, ghostlike herself, through the city. Without any clear recollection of the decision that has lead her there, she finds herself at the doors of a church.

Dusty sunlight filters through stained glass, coloring the pool of light that lands beside her on the pew with a blurred impression of the Virgin Mother.

The warm, silent expanse is comforting in its familiarity, but the consolation ends there. God has no answers for her. And she doesn't need them anymore.

 _Don't,_ she'd said. _Please_.

So he had gone.

Later in the week, she visits his grave.

"Thank you," she whispers to the unforgiving earth.

It makes no response, so she leaves, trying not to imagine him watching her walk away, back to their son and their empty house.

She doesn't hear his voice again.

X

X

X

Another short one, because I figured something is better than waiting.

I know I promised it wouldn't be sad forever, but it's going to be sad for a while yet, so I hope you brought your tissues, kids.

Sorry. Kind of.

Review, please! I'd love to know if I've successfully dragged anyone into the pit of despair with me on this one. (besides AllyinthekeyofX, who had it coming ;P)


	7. Part Two - Chapter 3

The face that stares back at her from the mirror is sullen, uncomfortable.

With a defeated sigh, she shrugs out of the dress, turning back to her closet. It has been years since she's worn the thing, and it now it hangs loosely, unflattering on her much thinner frame.

Besides, black makes her think of mourning, and tonight can't be about Mulder.

Finally she settles on pants and a thin navy blue sweater with a low v-neck. The color makes her look warmer, less pallid and worn.

She bites her lip as she unclasps her gold chain with its weighty pendants, replacing it with a simple beaded strand that sits across her collarbones.

Behind her, Maggie announces her presence with a soft knock at the half-open door.

"It's almost seven," she says with a reassuring smile. "You look lovely, Dana. Come on."

Scully returns her mother's smile half-heartedly, following her into the living room with a sigh.

No sooner have they stepped into the other room, a knock comes at the door. Mrs. Scully flashes another smile over her shoulder at her daughter before going to answer it.

"Hi, Maggie," a smiling voice comes from the doorway.

"Hello, Mark. Please, come in."

He is tall and thin with narrow shoulders and bright, kind eyes. He frequents Maggie's church and also teaches English at the local college. His dark brown hair is cropped close to his skull, a little short for her liking but she thinks that he is cute, if in mostly a nerdy kind of way. He looks youthful, but he's only a year younger than her. Adding to his all-around friendly professor look is a brown suede jacket over a button-down white oxford.

When his eyes fall on her his smile widens a little.

"You look beautiful, Dana."

She smiles back nervously, hoping that her blush and slight grimace come off as shyness and not blatant discomfort. Mercifully, she is saved the obligation to reply by her son, wandering sleepily out of his room to investigate the newcomer.

"And this must be William," Mark says with clear adoration, turning his attention to the boy but watching Scully's reaction from the corner of his eye.

William ducks behind her, eyeing Mark shyly from behind her legs. With a soft chuckle, Scully bends to scoop him up. At four years old, he is definitely getting too big to be held like this, but she makes an exception for the sake of breaking the ice.

"Will, this is Grandma's friend Mark. Can you say hi?"

William buries his face in his mother's hair, but murmurs a sleepy 'Hi'.

They all laugh and Scully kisses William's forehead before passing him off to Maggie to put back to bed.

When they have gone, Mark studies her with a gentle hesitancy. His cautious demeanor tells Scully that perhaps he already knows a little bit about her fucked up past. She smiles ruefully to herself at the thought, and Mark brightens, taking her arm.

"Shall we?"

X

Maggie is asleep on the couch when Scully lets herself back in around 11:00. She creeps silently through the living room, but her mother stirs anyway, having slept lightly in anticipation of her return.

"Dana?" Maggie sits up, blinking awake before Scully can escape to the solitude of her room. "How'd it go?"

Scully sighs tiredly, not turning to meet her mother's eyes.

"I tried, Mom."

There is a pause as Maggie waits for more, which she isn't going to get.

"Are you going to see him again?"

Another pause.

"Maybe," Scully lies. "I don't know. Goodnight, Mom."

She walks away without another word, stopping for a moment at the door to William's room to gaze in at her sleeping son before retreating to her room, wanting nothing more than to be alone.

A wretched lie, she thinks. She wants very much to not be alone, but the company she craves is not Mark's, or her mother's.

She closes the door behind her, slips into one of his old t-shirts, and curls up on the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest.

For years it had been them against the world, relying so heavily and exclusively on one another that the need and ability to form other relationships had all but vanished. Not that he'd much had it to begin with.

 _It should be that way still_ , she thinks with a dull ache. _Me, you, and William. No one else._

"What am I supposed to do?"

She whispers it aloud to the darkness, clutching her pillow tightly.

"I can't answer innocent questions about myself, about William, because the answers are complicated and painful. And even if I could, and someone managed to wade through all that insanity, I could never let myself get close to them. Because then I could lose them, like I lost you."

Her eyes sting and she breathes his name against the fabric over and over, knowing that none of it matters because she will simply never be whole again.

XXX

"Are you thinking about my dad?"

Startled out of her reverie, she blinks down at the pensive six-year-old eyes that regard her far too knowingly from across the picnic table.

In that moment he looks so much like Mulder that she can't help the small, pained intake of breath. William pretends not to notice.

"I- yes, actually, I was."

Scully studies her son for a moment. She'd had this conversation tucked away in the back of her mind for years, rehearsed and ready, but now she can't seem to remember her lines.

"You've never asked about him before," she says softly. "Why now?"

William pokes at his plate of goldfish crackers.

"There's a way that you look sometimes, like you're remembering something and it's happy and sad at the same time. Sometimes you look at me that way, but mostly it's when you're thinking."

Scully's breath catches in her throat, but she waits for him to continue.

"Jesse's dad just got back from being a soldier," He says after a minute, glancing to the playground on his right where his friend is playing with her family.

"He's been away for two years, and she didn't remember him that much."

William trails off for a moment, a tiny crease forming between his brows as he frowned at the picnic table, not meeting his mother's eyes.

"I know I have to have a dad somewhere," he mumbles, picking despondently at the little orange fish. "But I don't remember him, so I think he's away somewhere else. I think that's why you look sad when you remember him."

Finally looking up, his eyes are genuinely curious and confused.

"Jesse said sometimes they're gone for four years," William says matter-of-factly. "Maybe my dad will come back when I'm eight."

Bright as he is for his age, he is still just a little boy who wants a father.

As a mother Scully would and could do almost anything necessary to protect and provide for her son, but as he looks up at her with his father's eyes, round and believing, asking the impossible of her, she feels herself slowly bleed from old wounds poorly sutured.

"Oh, honey," Scully breathes, giving her beautiful, half-Mulder, almost-first-grader a watery smile. "Why don't you run and tell Jesse you'll see her tomorrow. Then we can go home and talk about your father."

XXX

Scully sits cross-legged on the carpeted floor of her bedroom, William a tangle of long child limbs spilling across her lap. Absently she runs a hand through his hair as he silently explores the contents of the small wooden box before him.

Unbeknownst to William, some things around the house already exist as silent tributes to his absent father, left meticulously in place by Scully to remind her of their fleeting time together;

the oversized leather coat she keeps in the front closet, occasionally finding cause to slip on in the winter.

the glowing fish tank in the corner of the living room, long missing its orange and black mollies.

the tattered New York Knicks shirt she still wears to bed every night, despite it long since having lost his smell.

the dusty half-eaten bag of sunflower seeds that has been tucked away in the cupboard since 7 SEPT 2002, untouched in almost five years but never thrown away.

But the box Scully has kept tucked away in her closet is a more private, sacred collection. Its contents are well-worn by her fingertips, infinitesimally corroded by her tears. She's kept it for her own broken heart, and for the inevitability of this day with their son.

Clutched gently in his small hands is a battered photograph of a handsome, well-dressed man in his thirties, wearing a roguish lopsided grin, caught mid-turn by the camera. Back in those days, he'd sported a longer haircut, with several locks flopping rebelliously over onto his forehead; the result was charmingly eccentric.

She can't remember the exact moment she'd captured this rare smile, but knows that he'd been throwing some snarky retort or innuendo at her over his shoulder, only to be genuinely surprised by the lens in his face.

The photo had been a treasure to her long before William had come, long before their greatest struggle had fallen on them like crushing tons of ice in an avalanche.

Other photographs capture his wariness, his darkness, his unending grief and rage at the world for what it is capable of and what it had done. She loves him for all these things as well, but she has precious few untarnished memories of his happiness.

At William's feet lies one such picture; Special Agent Fox Mulder's most recent photo ID, displayed on his badge. All Bureau ID photos are taken unsmiling, but Scully thinks he looks particularly haunted in this one.

The box contains little else; some newspaper clippings pressed between the pages of a journal she'd once written to him, a couple of photos of his family, including the one of Samantha he'd carried for so long. His watch, several notes scrawled on scraps of old paperwork, the nameplate that once garnished the door of his office. An old publication of the Lone Gunman magazine.

Scully holds her son patiently as he studies the artifacts before him, her hand in his hair acting to soothe her as much as him.

 _I have William_ , she tells herself, a constant mantra of the past five years. _He is so like his father. We're safe, and happy enough. That's all he would have wanted._

She blinks to keep the tears from welling up.

"My dad's dead, isn't he?" William asks quietly after a while.

Scully squeezes her eyes shut, pressing a desperate kiss on top of the boy's head as her throat closes around a sob.

"Yeah, baby, he is," she chokes, pulling him tightly against her chest. "I'm sorry."

William's lip quivers as he hugs back, shaken by his mother's sorrow, but his eyes remain dry. He sees himself in the handsome-faced man, more than he sees himself in his mother, but he cannot bring himself to cry for this father he never knew.

XXX

"Hi, Mom, thanks for coming."

"Of course, Dana," Maggie Scully says softly as her daughter ushers her in, her voice hinting at concern. "How is everything?"

Scully bites her lip, checking over her shoulder to see that William is still in his room playing with Legos, and leads her mother into the living room.

"We're going to see Mulder today," she says softly, keeping her voice low. "I thought I could handle it, but… I don't think I can go alone."

Maggie's face is briefly pained before morphing into a careful mask of sympathy.

"How long has he known?" she asks softly.

"A few days. He asked about his dad Tuesday at the park. We've talked a little, but I know he still has lots of questions."

They both fall silent as William wanders in, pretending to be oblivious to their conversation.

"Hi, Grandma."

"Hi, Will," Maggie says with a soft smile, hugging her grandson. He takes her and and leads her back to the door, turning to his mother before opening it.

"Are you ready to go, Mom?"

 _Never_ , Scully thinks, but she follows him out anyway, her hand nervously reaching for the thin gold chain around her neck and the pendants that hang under the hollow of her throat. Her fingers brush first the familiar shape of her cross, then, more tenderly, the smooth little circlet of gold with its simple, elegant stone.

In the weeks after his funeral (his second funeral, she reminds herself bitterly), the few remaining friends and family she had came by the house in shifts, helping sort through Mulder's things, look after William, and offer what little support they could to her in her grief.

Bill's wife Tara had made a point of coming around as often as she could, bringing her young son in hopes of cheering her sister-in-law up. William had still been too young to understand, but the older boy played with him while the women worked quietly.

"William found something, Aunt Dana," Matt had said one afternoon, gently prying a small object out of the toddler's hands before he could put it in his mouth. "Here, take it so he can't choke on it."

He had dropped a small velvet box in her hands, and her heart had stopped. Not trusting herself to stand, she had sank into the nearest chair, clutching the table for support and staring at the little box as if it held a bomb.

"Dana?" Tara called from across the room, having watched the exchange from a distance. She walked very slowly as Matt took William back to his room to play.

"Oh, Dana." Tara's hand had cautiously found her shoulder, channeling unfelt comforts. Scully had stared soundlessly at the little box, terrified of its contents, feeling that if he took any more of her to the grave with him, William would no longer have a mother, either.

Later, when Tara and Matt had gone, dismayed by her despondency, and Maggie had come to watch William, she took a dusty, lifeless breath and pushed the hinged lid open. Moving for the first time in hours, she unhooked her necklace and let the ring fall into place, hanging above her heart. Many times, she had ached to slip it onto her finger, but never could.

Now, it weighs heavily around her neck as she navigates the familiar path to his resting place. Trudging between tombstones, she hates that it's called that; Mulder had never rested, and wouldn't in death, either.

As she approaches his headstone, she realizes that her mother and William have hung back, Maggie whispering something in Will's ear. He looks nervous, frightened even.

Scully turns away wordlessly. There will be time to talk, to comfort, to explain. But for now she needs to sit with her partner, to tell him how their son has grown, to press her hands to the ground in hopes that somewhere, somehow, he can hear her.

It has been too long since she's come to see him. She used to make the trek every day, but as William got older it started getting harder. Her last bunch of flowers has dried, petals withering and crumbling away.

She sinks to her knees before his carved-marble name and Maggie quietly leads William away, letting him barrage her with the painful questions that his mother isn't quite ready to face.

"Hey, Mulder," she breathes when they've gone. Closing her eyes, she can almost pretend that he's sitting beside her in the grass.

She speaks softly and fondly, envisioning his face and his reactions as she tells him of how William had gotten a turtle for his last birthday, and it had eaten all the mollies, most of which were already replacements. She tells him of how she teaches young medical students at the local college; hospital shifts had worked for a while with William in daycare, but she prefers the regular schedule of college. She tells him of how Bill and Tara's second child, a daughter named Meredith, had just turned three, and she and William had flown to them for the party. It had been his first time on a plane. She tells him of how William wants to start playing soccer in the fall when he starts first grade. She surrenders all her favorite memories of their lives since they'd lost him, letting it hurt because in some ways she can also feel it begin to heal. At some point she becomes aware of her son behind her, but doesn't turn.

"I wish you could know him, Mulder," she whispers, knowing William can hear. Without opening her eyes she senses him scoot closer, pressing against her side.

"Why don't you call him Fox?"

Scully can't help but laugh a little. She pictures Mulder doing the same, ruffling his son's hair and struggling to explain their various eccentricities.

"Your father didn't like his first name very much," she says softly, almost smiling. "And when we met, we were partners at the FBI. He chose to call me by my last name, and insisted that I do the same."

She pauses, then remembers that she wants to explain everything as thoroughly as she can.

"Mul- your dad had a difficult life. He lost a lot of people who were close to him. I think at first, calling me Scully was his way of ensuring that he didn't get too close to me. But he got close anyway, and it became...our special thing, I guess. I've always called him Mulder."

William thinks this over for a moment. "Fox is a funny name," he says finally. "I think I'd go by Mulder too."

Scully puts an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close.

"What else do you want to know?"

William pauses to think again.

"How did he die?"

Scully stiffens, not having expected this question to come till much later.

"Not today, Will," she says quietly. "I promise I'll tell you sometime, but not today."

"Ok," he says, fidgeting with a blade of grass. "Do I have any family from him? Grandmas or uncles?"

 _God, Mulder, this is hard_ , she thinks, her heart aching. The only family William knows is his grandma and his uncle Bill. He should have had so much more.

"Yes," she says finally, not wanting to lie. "Your father had a sister. Your aunt Samantha. Your grandma's name is Tina. You were named for your grandpa William."

Still fidgeting, he doesn't meet her eyes. Then, quietly; "Are they all dead, like Dad and aunt Missy?"

Scully hugs him gently to her side. "Yes. Your grandma and grandpa are buried here, too."

William recoils a little from her touch and Scully instantly regrets telling him so much.

"Will?"

He pushes away from her and stands.

"I want to go home now," he says, and she can hear that he's upset. "There are too many dead people."

She starts to reach for him, but stops when he places one small hand on the headstone, tracing his father's name carefully.

"Bye, Dad." His voice breaks and he ducks his head, pushing past her to run back to the car.

XXX

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Ok - I know there was a lot going on in this part, and I definitely did not make the sad go away. Oops.

Things will start to go uphill again in a few chapters, at least a bit. The ending is already written but the between here and there is still in pieces.

Give me your thoughts, dear readers. You help fuel the little typewriter trolls that live in my brain.


	8. Part Two - Chapter 4

XXX

She wants to give him space, but his silence unnerves her. It has been more than a week since the cemetery, and William has spoken maybe a dozen words, shrugging in response to most questions or ignoring them completely.

She feels a void begin to form, and fills it the only way she can. Every day, she sits over her partner's grave, telling him endlessly of her worries. Though the cold, stiff monument makes no reply, she feels better, little by little.

"Did Dad play sports?"

The question comes out of the blue as they drive home after school. William's face is turned to the window, so at first she thinks she had imagined it.

"Your father loved baseball," Scully replies, trying to keep her voice light so he doesn't shut down again. "And he was pretty good at basketball, too. He loved to play to stay in shape when he wasn't working."

"Not soccer?" His tone is disappointed.

"I never saw him play," she admits. "But he was a very fast runner. I bet he would have been great at it."

Scully glances sideways at her son.

"Your dad would have loved to play soccer with you, Will."

He doesn't turn away from the window, but she thinks she can see him relax a little.

"Okay."

XXX

Misty, powdered-sugar snowflakes fall as the shadows begin to lengthen, not quite sticking when they hit the unfrozen ground.

Several strands of premature Christmas lights adorn the facade of Margaret Scully's house, warming the chilly block and twinkling through the front window into the dining room. Maggie flits around lighting unnecessary candles while her daughter stands at the kitchen counter, fixing herself a cup of coffee with milk and cinnamon. In the living room, William is sunk into one of the oversized armchairs, deeply engrossed in a book. Pushing eleven, he's nearly taller than his mother, a fact which he pokes at her mischievously at every chance he gets.

Sipping her coffee, Scully glances at the stovetop clock.

"Bill better not be late," she calls to her mother in a good-natured grumble. "If I don't get some food soon, I'm going to start chewing on one of your scented pinecones."

Maggie shoots her daughter a look.

"There's a cheese tray in the fridge, Dana."

"They're about to pull in the driveway," Will says without taking his eyes off the page.

Mid-reach for the cheese, Scully frowns. She doesn't need to peek into the living room to know that Will has no direct line of sight to the road, even if he was looking up.

He calls attention to his abnormally heightened senses infrequently enough that it still throws her off. Usually she chooses to act like he's said nothing out of the ordinary, partially because she doesn't want him to feel different, and partly because frankly, it scares her a little.

Sure enough, his words are followed by the distant gravelly crunch of tires on asphalt.

Already looking for a distraction, Scully calls her son out from the living room.

"Will, come help me with the plates."

There are too few of them for the house to accumulate the stuffy, claustrophobic heat of most holiday gatherings, a fact for which Scully would be grateful if not for the reasons they are only seven.

The stiff, obligatory hug she gives her brother makes her miss Melissa, with her easy touch and genuine smiles. She'd miss Charlie, too, but she has never known him well enough in their adult lives to know what to long for. Regardless, nobody speaks of the absent Scully children.

After a couple of dry starts due to their awkward ages and infrequency of their interactions, Will and his cousins duck off to some corner of the house to play.

Maggie pours them each a glass of cabernet, though Tara politely declines. Scully glances surreptitiously at her sister-in-law's abdomen, suspicious of a third child on the way.

Wading through small talk and sipping her wine, Scully flits about the kitchen to help her mother cook. It has grown dark outside by the time they all gather around the table.

Bill leads them in saying grace over the food, then carves the turkey amidst quiet laughter and passing of side dishes. _A perfect family holiday_ , Scully thinks. _On the surface at least_.

Afterward, Scully washes the dishes while Tara dries and puts them away. They chat amiably while Maggie is lead off by Meredith to see a drawing she had made earlier. Bill settles into the living room with the boys, each toting a whipped-cream laden piece of pie.

Lulled by the wine, the warm dishwater, and the easy conversation, Scully notices herself relax, feeling more comfortable with her family than she has in years. The thought makes a tiny smile play across her lips.

 _Maybe we're not entirely fucked up after all._

No sooner has the thought fully formed, she feels a familiar uneasiness stir in her gut at a snippet of overheard conversation from the living room.

"...get himself killed. Mulder never had much regard for safety, though."

Her partner's name coming from her brother's mouth is never a good sign. Anger flares up as she realizes that he's talking to Will, and Scully abandons the plate she's scraping to intervene.

"Dana-" Tara starts, but Scully brushes her hand away, turning for the living room.

"It's a miracle you and your mom even got out alive," she hears him continue as she forces herself to stop several feet from the couch where he sits with her son.

"Bill."

The iciness in her voice makes him look up, and she can tell by the rosy patches on his cheeks that he's had one glass of wine too many.

"What?" he challenges, putting a hand on Will's shoulder. "The kid is curious about his father."

Scully bristles, terrified of what Bill may have already said. "That isn't your conversation to have."

Sensing a confrontation, Maggie hovers near the stairs, ready to interject.

"Why not, Dana? So you can tell him how his hero dad died to save his life?" Bill gives a haughty, disbelieving scoff, one that she has come to associate almost exclusively with his hatred of Mulder over the years. "Even if that is true, it's the one thing that jerk ever did right by you, and I'd think that Will has the right to hear about it."

"Bill," Maggie warns, but her daughter is quicker.

Crossing the remaining distance between them in one quick stride, Scully lashes out, her hand connecting with a stinging slap that throws Bill's head to the side.

"You will NOT talk about him that way in front of his son!" she spits, her voice tremulous with anger.

The room goes deadly silent, and for a moment, no one moves.

Rubbing his stinging cheek, Bill glares up at his sister, then quickly stands so he towers over her. Eyes flashing with alarm, Will stands too, ready to step between them if necessary.

The venomous stare hangs in the air between them for a moment before Scully reaches for her son.

"Come on, Will."

Nobody speaks as she gathers up her bag and their coats, but Maggie catches her in the driveway.

"He only acts that way because he cares about you, Dana," she whispers, her voice fragile in the cold air. "He's your brother."

Scully pulls her arm free, not meeting her mother's eyes. "Maybe he was once," she says bitterly, and gets in the car without looking back.

The snow falls heavier as they drive in silence, Scully forcing herself to calm for the sake of their safety.

Finally she turns to William.

"You don't have to say anything, Mom," he says quietly before she can open her mouth. "I didn't ask uncle Bill about my dad." He bites his lip, looking down at his lap. "I already knew."

Scully blinks, taken aback. "How?"

He picks at his shirt sleeve. "Found the police report on the internet last year."

Scully sucks in a breath, suddenly unsure if Bill's drunken tirade is still worse.

"Shot in the chest outside a motel in Pennsylvania," Will continues softly, still not looking at her. "Died en route to the hospital. They used 'man', 'woman', and 'infant' instead of our names, but Walter was mentioned near the end, so I knew it was Dad."

Staring ahead into the headlight beams of swirling snow, she can't find anything to say, but now she can feel his eyes on her.

"You and Mulder had a lot of enemies from your FBI work. They wanted to hurt you both, and me, right?"

Unable to speak, she nods, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"And he got shot so we wouldn't be hurt, right?"

Her chin quivers but she nods again.

"Then that's all I need to know."

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Well, if this hasn't cemented it in everyone's heads yet - Yes, Mulder is quite dead. Sorry to everyone who keeps asking, I feel really evil that you all still have some amount of hope, and I have to crush it.

That being said...the story isn't over.

I was going to jump straight from 6yo William to adult William, but then I decided I needed some drama other than the continual Scully missing Mulder angst. (i dont think i made anyone cry this chapter, at least.)

I also wanted to hint to Will's not-quite-normal nature, as well as draw some parallels with him and Scully having serious conversations in cars, just like Mulder. Hope you guys liked it.

I think there will be one more chapter before part three. Let me know what you think, as the story is still evolving at the moment.

Cheers!


	9. Part Two - Chapter 5

XXX

His sixteenth birthday comes almost as a shock, and she surprises herself by gifting him not with the customary beaten-up first car, but with dusty volumes of her past, an explicitly taboo bit of family history that she feels he is finally ready to know.

It lands on a Wednesday, and she makes him go to school despite his good-natured pleading. When he tumbles in the front door, six feet of teenage lankiness and breathless energy, the boxes are stacked beside the couch, not wrapped but adorned with a big red bow.

"Happy Birthday, Will." Scully moves to give her son a hug, wondering when exactly he had sprouted from boy into towering young man.

His eyes widen when they fall on the tellingly dated containers and he pulls back to look at her face.

"Is that- ?"

"Yeah."

"How did you get them?"

She smiles, turning for the kitchen to make them a pot of coffee. "I still have strings I can pull. Besides, they were just in storage. There's nobody left who really wants them."

"Besides me."

"Besides you," she agrees, and settles onto the couch with her coffee, grabbing a medical journal that she'll pretend to read while he picks through the files and tries not to ask a thousand questions. A small smile pulls at the corner of her lips as he abandons his backpack to sit on the floor amongst the boxes.

 _Oh, yeah,_ she thinks. _Definitely the right gift._

XXX

Barely a year later, he's gone. Humble yet charismatic in his valedictorian speech, fooling them all into thinking that he's something along the lines of a normal teenager before whirling off to the city, leaving the rest of his class in the dust.

He calls her as often as he can, but the workload he's given himself is nearly incomprehensible.

She knows that she should start considering retirement, but the idea of not having her work when she only barely still has her son is unthinkable. So she occupies herself with long hours, filling her lonely time at home with books and phone calls. She's immensely proud of him, but that only makes it marginally more bearable.

The final blow comes in October, when she sits in a stiff grey chair beside a hospital bed. Blood pulses weakly through veins visible under paper-thin skin, and as she clutches Maggie's frail hand, she feels it finally slow and shudder to a stop.

Her mother's funeral is the first time he's been home since he left, and while his presence is an immeasurable comfort, Scully feels a distance that seems impossible to have grown so quickly in the months he's been gone. His murky green eyes have become unreadable to her, or near enough; the one thing she can tell is that he's hiding something.

After they've buried her, Scully cries tiredly into her son's neck, hating the way his arms feel stiff on her back, wishing more than anything that she could go back to a time when he was just a boy, when Maggie was alive, when they still had Mulder.

He kisses her cheek as he pulls away, needing to get back to whatever his life is that it has made him withdraw from her so.

"I love you, Mom."

This, at least, sounds sincere, but it does nothing to keep her from crumpling as he walks away.

XXX

His calls come fewer, farther between.

She retreats into her work, desperate to fill the aching holes left my Mulder, by her mother. Slowly, with his secrecy and sleepless eyes, William carves his own hole, somewhere between her heart and her gut.

No amount of reading, researching, cleaning, jogging, or praying can keep her occupied.

One day, he stops by the house unexpectedly, and they sit together drinking coffee, silently watching one another.

"What have you been working on?" she asks finally, because she recognizes the way he has retreated from her, fears that he will become obsessed with finding some truth about his fucked up little family, just as Mulder had.

His answer confirms her suspicions, her fears.

"Something that could change everything for us, Mom."

She almost doesn't want to ask.

"What do you mean?"

He fidgets, sips his coffee. In his grey sweater and jeans, ruffled hair and intelligent eyes, he is the spitting image of a young Mulder. His face has some of her softness, but she likes to think he got the better half of their looks.

"If there was a way to get dad- Mulder back, would you try it?"

Scully stares at her son, frozen. Her fingernails dig into the unyielding porcelain of her coffee mug, an immediate and intense stress response to her brain's panic as it tries to reconcile what she's just heard.

Finally she gathers her wits and composes herself. "No," she breathes after a long moment, lowering her gaze to the floor.

Will blinks at her, taken aback. "You haven't even heard what I'm going to say."

Scully shakes her head. "I don't need to. I wish more than anything that he had been there for you growing up, Will, but I made peace with his death years ago. And regardless of how you think you can get him back, you'd be entering into a dangerous world that you don't fully understand. One that I've fought to keep you out of your entire life."

"I know more than you think," Will challenges. "And you can lie to me all you want, but don't lie to yourself. You never made peace with his death. After all these years, you're still hurting. You still won't let anyone in."

She feels a flash of anger but bites it back, knowing that Will isn't the reason. "You're right," she says steadily. "He was taken from me far too soon, and I would give anything to have him back, Will. Anything except risk you. You're all I have left of him. You're all I have left in the world."

She holds his gaze across the table, trying to make him understand. Will's eyes are warm and green, but he's never had the emotional block that his father did, and while Scully sometimes found Mulder difficult to read, William is an open book, expressing himself in ways he'd picked up from her. She sees before he can speak that his mind is made up, but softly voices her last appeal anyway.

"Please don't ask this of me, Will."

William looks at her for a long moment, and she sees the disappointment in his eyes, along with a rebellious determination that she knows all too well.

"I'm not," he says finally. "Asking. I've been working towards this for years. It has become my life. I have to try. I'm sorry, Mom."

He looks at her sadly as he stands, turning for the door without another word.

X

END PART TWO (Scully) CONTINUED IN PART THREE: William

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AUTHORS NOTE:

Alright, guys. This is officially uncharted territory for me. This story is about to get really...I don't know exactly what, but I've never written anything like it before. So bear with me. I'm certainly having fun writing William. The style of part three is going to be slightly different because we're going to be in Will's head a little bit, but I think it works. Let me know what you think, now more than ever!


	10. Part Three

Sorry for taking so long! I was camping with no cell/internet service for a few days. Also I needed to spend some time thinking about how I want to write William. I keep beating myself up about the unavoidable sci-fi element of his storyline. (PS, I jumped a few years again in the last bit of the last chapter- Will is now in his early 20s.) Anyway, here is a little snippet of a chapter to let you guys know I'm still here. More to come very soon.

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XXX

His head droops slowly forward, one lightly stubbled cheek dragging along the wrist of the arm that just barely keeps him from tipping face first into the open copy of _The Elegant Universe_ on the table before him.

A lone desk lamp throws a warm circle of light onto the dozing young man and his work; papers and books seem to have tumbled haphazardly out of a much-abused knapsack, almost entirely obscuring the smooth, darkly-stained hardwood of the table.

In fact, the entire apartment, as tastefully furnished as it may have been per the original standards of his housing arrangement, (provided and paid for entirely by the college) seems to have received a similar treatment. Books and folders inhabit every corner, stacked precariously on every surface and overflowing from the tall shelves actually designed to hold them. The furniture had been selected purposely for its minimalistic elegance, but it is hardly noticeable beneath the chaos.

It is only several minutes after midnight - still hours before he normally drags himself to bed, or, more often, falls unconscious where he sits, but today had been particularly trying, and the accumulated sleeplessness is starting to take its toll.

In an irrefutable sign of his exhaustion, it takes William until the third ring to jerk awake, and until the fourth to reach for his phone.

He blinks tiredly at the screen, almost not answering when he sees the name beneath the numbers.

"Hey." His murmured greeting is soft and raspy. Surprised, it takes her a moment to respond.

"Were you asleep?"

"Not intentionally." He sits up, marking his page and pushing the book aside to stretch back against the wooden chair. "Crashed at the table."

He can almost hear the motherly reprimand before she speaks.

"Will…." she trails off, sighing. The concern in her voice makes him feel a pang of guilt, low in his gut. "I've been worried about you. I need to know that you're taking care of yourself. And…" he can picture her biting her lip, a nervous habit he'd inherited. "And I need to know what you're getting yourself into. Even if I don't agree with it. You're an adult and you can do what you think is right…. but I can't not know, Will. It terrifies me to not know."

It's William's turn to sigh, running a hand over his face and through his hair.

"It going to take a lot of explaining," he warns tiredly, knowing this won't deter her.

She doesn't disappoint. "I have time."

"Alright." He closes his eyes. _Damn it, Mom._ "Come for lunch tomorrow. I'll do my best to fill you in. But try to change my mind and I'm keeping you out of the loop again." It feels oddly like talking to a child.

She won't, she promises.

"Ok. 'Night, Mom."

Sighing, Will tosses the phone into the pile of papers and leans back in his chair to crack his stiff spine, rolling his neck a little before standing. When they'd last spoken a little over a week ago, he'd barely been able to contain his excitement, fidgeting on her couch until she'd shut him down.

 _If there was a way to get Dad- Mulder back...would you try it?_

 _ **No**._

He understands her wariness. It is well-meaning and well-deserved. But after a week of uncomfortable silence in which he knows she's thought about little else, he has no idea what he's going to tell her.

But the notes on the table catch his eye, and he remembers he has more pressing concerns. Reaching for the omnipresent pot of stale coffee, he sits back down, thumbing to the page he'd marked and twirling a pen between his fingers to shake off the last cumbersome remnants of sleep.

 _Just a few more hours._


	11. Part Three - Chapter Two

XXX

Her tea is cold by the time he finds her tucked in a back corner of what used to be their weekly lunch spot, a thin film of coagulated chamomile solids forming around the lip of the mug.

A hand at her back alerts her of his presence and he slides into the chair across the table before she can stand to greet him with a hug.

Her lips press into a thin line as she studies him, trying not to let her concern and disapproval show. The quick twitch of his lopsided smile tells her that she has failed miserably, and she lets her guard down a bit, smiling a little in return simply because it is good to see him.

"Did you sleep at all?"

Knowing he can't hide anything from his mother, Will shrugs.

"After my little midnight nap? Nah, not really."

He's painfully aware of the gnawing worry behind her careful composure, and as he holds her gaze, she knows she doesn't need to say anything, so instead she leans back, silent for a moment before letting the small smile creep back to her lips.

"Is that a hint of red I see in your beard, Will?"

He chuckles, scratching at the two-day stubble irritably.

"Yeah. Who knew? I really need to shave."

She laughs a little too before delicately pushing them into the realm of more challenging small talk.

"How's Tess?"

She tries not to ask this question often, but when she does, the guilt is almost overwhelming. He tries to push it from his mind, his eyes dropping from his mother's to the table.

Even since before Mulder died, she'd lost her chance at having a whole family little by little, one painful chip at a time. Unable to conceive a second child, even if she'd wanted to. Scarred by her loss to the point of being unable to forge new relationships. Estranged from her brothers, bereaved of her sister. When her mother had died, she'd had no one left but her son, and he'd been miserably absent, consumed by his work. But as William grew into a handsome, intelligent young man, he knew she'd clung to the hope that he'd give her the family she'd never known, that he'd live some semblance of normality which she could experience vicariously through him; his wife, his children.

Of course Scully had loved Tess instantly, clinging to the thought of her like a drowning sailor cast ashore beneath the brilliant glow of a lighthouse. They'd only met a handful of times, but it had been enough to temper her softly-formed image of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren into something desperate and unshakeable.

He can't blame her. Tess had been everything. Brilliant to the point he had to wonder about her genetics. Relentless in her enthusiasm for life. Raven-haired, with delicate wrists and a strange grace that fell in stark contrast to her quick temper, which had scared the shit out of him more times than he could count. She was a force of nature. And she was gone.

He wants to think that it had been mutual, but that would be a miserable lie. She would have followed him to the end of the world, then picked him up and kept on walking. But the future he'd chosen for himself was uncertain at best. So he'd cut her off, pushed her away, and buried all thoughts of her beneath his work. If he succeeded, it wouldn't matter anyway.

"Will?"

"She's good," he lies, dragging himself out of his reverie. "I see her around sometimes." Another lie.

Unable to look her in the eye, he flags down their server for a coffee and orders the first sandwich on the menu, knowing he probably won't eat it till later anyway. Like pretty much everything about William Scully, his sleeping and eating cycles are far from normal.

William sips his coffee, feeling his mother's eyes on him. The silence hangs thick between them as she waits for him to speak, and he knows the time for small talk is over. She wants to know what's going on. The thought makes him nervous. With Dana Scully, there is a very delicate line between just enough information and too much. She'll either leave suspicious that he withheld information and resolved to do her own investigating, or horrified at his ideas, convinced that he's going to get himself killed. Neither is really a good outcome, he thinks with a sigh, and he glances around to make sure nobody is sitting within earshot.

He knows he can't tell her how much he's already seen.

The first fractured glimpse into the past had been entirely an accident, eleven years prior, to the credit of Nathaniel Mills, now the leader of the project. Mills had worked in secrecy for several years until he was able to recreate the experience, at which point he immediately began to assemble a team of physicists and engineers. Will had been one of the second wave of scientists hired as the project advanced, the youngest person involved by over a decade.

Recruited halfway through grad school for his uncanny intelligence and aptitude for conceptualizing the scientifically inconceivable, William had been almost too distracted by pure awe to have self-serving thoughts about his position on the team. A little over a month into the job, however, a simple technical error had taken the world as he knew it inside the confines of his little lab, expanded it tenfold, and flipped the entire meticulously-organized thing on its end.

2020, the engineer at the monitor beside him should have typed. Her name was Judy, he remembers; at the time he'd still been familiarizing himself with all the team members. 2020; just a few years back, an easy peek into a past they already knew; a simple test of alignment.

But she'd slipped. 2000. An insignificant fumble of fingers across the keys, and suddenly there they were on the screen, two suits jumping out at him from the sea of lab coats.

His parents. Young. Smiling. _Alive._

They'd been here, in this one of hundreds of labs at MIT. Consulting with some physicist or another about a case. The odds were astronomical. But to William the what, or why, or how didn't matter, because in that moment everything had changed.

He'd spent all night hunched over one of the monitors, following them through time in patches that he could access. The technology was still rusty, and the result was a fractured, grainy, and dimly-coloured silent film. An argument on the steps of the Hoover building; pizza delivery and a movie at apartment 42, 2630 Hegal Place, Alexandria; Mulder's face buried in his hands at his partner's beside, the third day in a week-long hospital vigil for some injury, or maybe her mysterious cancer; both of them crying on her couch after failed IVF.

He can't tell her all that he's seen, but he can try to make her understand.

William takes a deep breath.

"I know you used to work on some pretty unbelievable cases…..so hear me out before you call me crazy."

In the context of any other conversation, she'd have laughed at how Mulder - like this disclaimer sounds. But she only waits tensely for him to continue.

"Time...is malleable," William begins slowly, cautiously. "The events of the past are not set in stone. I've been working with a special research task force at MIT, and we've made some incredible discoveries."

Scully's stomach hardens into an anxious knot as she picks up on his excitement.

"I've been able to look back, Mom," he says softly. "I've been able to see him. See you both, in that year we were all together. And I want that. I want to have grown up with those parents."

Scully's hand is tight on the arm of her chair as his words sink in.

"You saw….the night he died?" Her voice is tight with emotion, bordering on anger. Will nods tensely; he'd drank the better part of a bottle of whiskey the night after that particular flashback.

William's eyes blaze. "We've already been phasing inanimate objects back and forth successfully for weeks. The project director is confident we'll be able to temporally displace animals and people by the end of the month."

She hears the hesitation in his voice.

"And?" She doesn't need to ask aloud, because the answer is written in the guilt on his face.

"...And I've volunteered to be among the first subjects."

Scully squeezes her eyes shut, and tears spill down her cheeks, burning familiar tracks across her skin. _I have William_ ; it had been her only comfort for years, and now that comfort seems distant.

He reaches across the table, pulls her hands into his, a sincere attempt at reassurance.

"I can save him, Mom," he says softly, earnestly. "I can stop that night at the motel from ever happening."

She squeezes his hands back, not meeting his eyes.

"No," she chokes, her breath frozen in her lungs. "Even if it's possible, you can't possibly know the consequences. And the risk...Will, if anything happened to you, I-"

He shushes her gently, shaking his head.

"It won't."

She pulls back, and William can see the panic begin to well in her chest. See her remembering some terror or anguish from so many years ago with his father. Remembering the crushing loss she had suffered, and fearing it again for her son.

She doesn't meet his eyes for a moment, and he gives her time to recompose herself. He knows she's thinking of his words on the phone last night: _protest too much, and I'll shut you out._

After a minute, she manages a steady breath.

"Can I see some of your notes? I'd like to know….how this all works. So I can know what is happening to you, physically."

Will bites his lip. "Classified, Mom."

She gives him a look that, through some application of energy conversion which has yet to be invented, could probably kill.

"Ok," he concedes, knowing it's the best response he could have expected. "But I promise, I'll be in good hands."

Scully sips her cold tea, unable to speak any further yet.

Will takes his sandwich to go and leaves some money on the table.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Later, she stands in his little apartment, thoroughly overwhelmed and holding a small armful of notebooks and folders. Their conversations had not been as long or detailed as she would have liked, but Will has started getting restless, so she saves him the trouble of trying to politely kick her out by calling it a day.

As she stands awkwardly by the door, unsure how to say goodbye in a way that won't send her into a panic attack, she manages a smile.

Will smiles back, puzzled. His head tips to the side in a way that reminds her endearingly of Mulder.

"What?"

Scully chuckles softly, but he can hear the lingering nervousness.

"If I thought there was any chance of you falling for it, I'd try to lure you back to the house and lock you in the basement or something."

Her tone is lighthearted enough, but he can tell that she's perfectly serious. His answering smile is sad as he pulls her into a reassuring hug, and as she wraps her tiny, fragile frame around his, he wonders just when their dynamic changed; William now the caretaker, his mother the one needing comfort.

"Yeah, I know you would," he says wryly, pulling back to open the door for her. "Too bad there's no stupid in these genes, huh?"

She chuckles again, this time sounding more genuine.

"I'd tell you I'll call with updates, but you're probably going to be keeping pretty close tabs on me now," he muses.

"It would still be good to hear from you. Be safe, Will. Please."

"I will," he promises as he waves her off, finally shutting the door when she gets in her car.

He swallows hard as he leans back against the door, putting his face in his hands.

 _If I pull this off, I get to have a family_ , he thinks. _A father._

For the first time throughout the entire emotionally trying day, he feels the pricking sting of tears behind his eyelids.

 _If I fail, I die. And it's going to kill my mother._

Literally. He knows her well enough to know that she won't survive the loss of her son; her only family and last meager source of happiness. He is, in every sense, her only reason for living. _And it shouldn't be that way, damn it._ The thought is enough to make him push off the door, wiping a hand across his eyes and shaking away his doubts.

Reaching for his keys, Will takes a deep breath. He doesn't have time to speculate on the possible outcomes.

He has to get to work.

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Well, I can't help it. Will is a new character for me, at least a little, so I have to write him a little more extensively than Mulder or Scully. I'm trying to hold to the minimal, semipoetic chapters I've given you so far but Will won't allow it. His arc needs a bit more explaining. I hope you guys can stick with me despite all that. More soon, but review with your thoughts please!


	12. Part Three - Chapter Three

XXX

The parking lot is dark and barren by the time he leaves the lab. A streetlight flickers overhead, its sizzling pulse the only sound in the otherwise still night.

Despite the late hour, William is anything but tired. Today had been a good day. A milestone. He's getting close.

So intent is he on his recounting of the day's work, he doesn't notice the figure beside his car almost until he reaches for the door handle. He starts, flinching back - but not out of fear.

Her dark eyes are unreadable as she studies him, not moving from where she leans against the side of the vehicle.

He keeps his face an impassive mask despite the barrage of emotions that threaten to move his legs against his will, crossing the short distance between them in a few easy strides. To his credit, and surprise, Will remains rooted firmly in place. Finally he trusts himself to speak, a muscle in his jaw clenching as he forces the words out.

"You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you." She pushes off from the car, taking a step towards him. The instinct to flee before he has to hear her speak again intensifies, but he forces himself to remain where he stands.

"You're going to get yourself killed, Will."

"That's fairly likely, yeah."

Her eyes flash as he shrugs, his feigned nonchalance striking a nerve.

"Did my mom send you?"

Her hands clench into fists at her sides.

"I came on my own. Believe it or not, I still care about you enough to try to stop you from throwing your life away."

The muscle in his jaw twitches again. "You shouldn't."

She steps forward again, then once more, until she is standing so close that he feels the hairs on his arm stand up, pulled by the slight charge of static in her thin sweater.

"Tess," he tries to warn, but his voice fails him and her name comes out little more than a whisper. She pushes into his space anyway, and he flinches back when her lips press against the skin beneath his ear. He jerks his head away, breaking the small amount of contact with a flash of anger.

" _Don't_."

She steps back, seemingly unsurprised and unhurt by his rejection, but he knows better. He holds her gaze for a moment, watching her struggle with herself and bracing for the inevitable onslaught of much-deserved ire.

Finally she purses her lips, and the cold sadness that settles on her features inflicts far more damage than any venomous retort or shouted accusation.

"I hope it's worth it."

He stares after her as she walks away, his eyes fixed numbly on the darkened concrete in the distance long after her silhouette has faded from view.

XXX

Friday, April 3, 2026. 6:37 PM

Under the dim, silvery glow of the few functioning fluorescent lights, two young men work in hurried, hushed secrecy, skillfully configuring their borrowed (stolen) equipment with nervous excitement.

It's Good Friday. The construction crews working throughout the developing new research building went home hours ago, not to return until early Monday. Sanitation and security workers will be sparse, and nobody will think anything of the two young scientists' absence. They have just under 60 hours, if everything goes according to plan.

Not that there is much of a plan.

When the calculations have been made, checked, and double checked, William lies back on the cold table, his chest and head a tangle of wires. Electrode pads stuck beneath his shirt and at his temples monitor his heart and brain activity.

"Ok, Will, best we can guess is about 30% better cohesion than last time," Travis says, surveying various monitors and fiddling with the science-fiction contraptions that surround them in the makeshift lab. "You still won't be entirely present in the other timeline, but you'll be able to affect a good deal more change. People will be able to see you, hear you, touch you. How far from their reality you'll appear, I can't say."

"If we knew that, it would be too easy," Will jokes, trying to suppress his nervousness. Travis seems pretty on edge, too.

"You sure this is a good idea, Will?" the young engineer asks, worried. "Mills would never authorize a project member to tamper with their personal timeline. What we're doing has potential to wipe everything we've accomplished from existence. We're both fired if he finds out. And probably prosecuted. If you don't get shot, that is."

William gives his companion a serious look.

"This is all on me," he says sternly. "Don't hesitate to throw me under the bus. It's the least I can do to repay you if this works."

"If this works, it won't matter, because none of this will have happened." Travis frowns. "I think."

"I'm not certain how the ripple effect will happen, either," William says, trying not to think about the potential consequences of his asinine quest. "We'll be the first to attempt this kind of...expedition. But if it works- if I save him, I don't think our histories will be immediately reset. Right?"

Travis shakes his head, looking fairly confident. "Not until you're fully reintegrated into this timeline. Two William Scullys in one temporal bubble at the time of the altered event could create some kind of crazy paradox, but with one and a half over there and half over here, the circuit won't be able to complete itself. Or something. Jesus, this is insane, Will."

"Just make sure to phase me back in nice and slow so I don't leave half my brain trapped inside baby-me's head or anything, okay?"

Travis chuckles nervously. "That's probably going to be on you, unfortunately."

Will bites his lip, feeling for the control pad in his pocket. "I know."

Their uneasiness is almost tangible. There is no way of knowing how long William will have to remain in the past, or even how long he will be able to. Despite it having never been attempted, he will most likely have to get himself back into his own timeline without Travis's help.

"Just do your best to keep them from finding where I am. If they pull me early…"

Travis nods, knowing the potential consequences.

Their nervous banter ceases as Travis makes the final adjustments to his gear. The machine hums to life, and William feels the telltale surge of energy that makes all his hairs stand on end.

"You ready for this?" Travis asks quietly. Will nods.

"I'll stay here and keep an eye on you as long as I can, Will," Travis promises. "And I won't pull you out early unless the situation becomes completely unsalvageable."

"Good."

"Alright, Will, see you on the other side. Maybe."

Will snorts. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"You have it. Really. If anyone can pull this off, it's you. You deserve it."

Suddenly Will's throat is tight and for the first time he's not thinking of his mother or Tess or what will happen if something goes wrong, but of how this is _actually about to happen_.

He catches his friend's hand, squeezing it tightly for just a second.

"Travis….thank you. For helping me do this. For thinking I even can."

Travis manages a grim smile before placing his hands at the controls, waiting for Will's confirmation to go.

Will nods, fixing his eyes straight ahead at the ceiling. _Now or never._

One by one, Travis pushes the sliders up, engaging the energy source that will set William's body out of sync with his own time, pushing him twenty-three years into the past.

It is his fourth time making the bizarre transition, but the feeling is no less strange for being familiar. The strange energy beneath his skin grows stronger, culminating in a temporary loss of sense. The transition is too much for his body to keep up with, and a creeping darkness pulls at the edges of his vision. Knowing from past experience that it's a battle he won't win, Will lets go, shutting his eyes and succumbing to unconsciousness.

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Well, he's off!

I'm really really glad you guys like Will. Though I by no means own the character, I've grown very attached to the version of him I came up with. Along that note, Tess kind of wrote herself in without my permission. Oops. I'm also super relieved everyone likes the time travel element; I'm very Scully-like in my convictions and don't often dabble in the supernatural (even for this show, seriously.) I hate not sneaking in a hideously detailed description of how I see Will's time-travel working, but this thing is already ending up way too long as it is.

As always, thanks for the support, and let me know what you think!


	13. Part Three - Chapter Four

Slowly, consciousness fizzles back, tugging at the corners of his senses until distant sounds and filtered light pull him awake into a brief swirl of disorientation, flat on his back on warm concrete.

It always takes a moment to remember, but he's getting quicker, and his recovery time is less than a minute before he takes in his surroundings and calculates his next move. In 2003, the building they'd hid out in hasn't been constructed yet, so he finds himself in a wide, empty parking lot a couple blocks off of campus. Familiar enough with the slightly altered landscape, Will turns south, the ambient rushing of cars and wind beckoning him toward the more heavily trafficked street.

The sun that had been setting when his molecules were being resequenced in 2026 is now up above, indicating early afternoon; syncing the relative times is a kink they have yet to work out.

Since he is not entirely present in this timeline, everything around him looks just slightly off; the colors are duller and some things look less tangible, wispy even. He knows that he may appear the same way to the people of this time, and tugs his hood over his head, hiding his face. The hooded sweatshirt is a well-worn, dark grey garment from the nineties, selected from a grimy downtown Goodwill to help him blend in. He'd washed it several times before deciding that the thing had just been designed to look dirty.

Gathering his thoughts post brain-scrambling time travel blackout, Will knows he is on a tight schedule and rushes to the road, finding a bus stop and a newspaper. They got the date right, or close enough; right now Mulder, Scully, and baby William would be hiding out at their second motel. Later, they would move on to the third, slowly making their way north to the ill-fated Hillside Inn.

While waiting for the bus, he decides to try calling to warn them. He knows that his parents will be paranoid and on edge, but he has to at least try. He stands at the pay phone, watching people and cars as the line rings, connecting him with the old cell phone number he'd been able to track down for his mother.

She answers warily, and her young, bold voice sends a shock through him.

"Please don't hang up," he says quickly, picturing her reaching for her gun and peering out the motel room window as Mulder hovers protectively beside her.

"Who is this?"

"I can't tell you," Wil breathes. "But I only want to help. You and Mulder are in danger." He glances around, feeling incredibly vulnerable inside the transparent phone booth and wary that Scully's phone might be tapped. "They know you're heading north. They'll be waiting for you tomorrow on I-81. They'll follow you to the motel. You have to throw them off; double back or head west. If you don't, he'll be killed."

Her breath is shaky in the receiver as she considers his words.

"Scully, who is it?" Mulder murmurs in the background, barely audible.

"No one," she says quickly, and the line disconnects.

"Wait!" William gasps, but the dial tone is already sounding in his ear. Behind him, the bus is just pulling up. With no confirmation that she intended to take his advice, he has no choice but to go to them. He hangs the pay phone back in its cradle and dashes after the bus before it can pull away.

" _Scully, who is it?"_

He'd heard his father's voice.

He is almost still in shock over it. He'd heard his father, alive and breathing, for the first time in his conscious memory.

 _Get a grip, Will_ , he thinks. _You're probably going to have to speak to him, face to face_.

The bus rumbles slowly from town to town, and before long the sun begins to set. He doesn't dare stop moving, though, for fear of losing track of them. When the bus route begins to veer too far south, he gets off in a relatively large city. He needs a crowded area for what he has to do next; steal a car. He'd thought briefly about trying to rent one, but between his slightly ghostlike appearance and his 2026 dated license, it probably wouldn't go well.

Slipping quietly between street-parked cars in the dark, he selects an unassuming grey sedan, busting the lock and crossing the wires to start it.

He flies down the darkening highway, stopping only once to get coffee, use the bathroom, and surreptitiously swap license plates with another car, just in case the one he stole had been reported missing. He knows the route by heart, having studied it on a map hundreds of times. Despite his warning call, Will knows his mother well enough to check the path he'd warned her against first.

Sure enough, he spots the navy blue Ford Explorer - the same vehicle Scully had driven until Will was in middle school - parked outside the solitary lit window of the second motel he passes. Simultaneously thanking and cursing his mother for being so predictable, Will pulls into the farthest corner of the lot and shuts his lights off, wiping his suddenly sweaty palms on the knees of his jeans. He's thought this through a thousand times, but now his mind goes blank of all premeditated plans, filled instead with the heavy thud of blood rushing in his ears, growing steadily faster with his mounting anxiety.

 _Guess I'm gonna wing it_ , he thinks, fumbling for the door handle and vaguely wishing that the night air was cooler; the tepid breeze that stirs across the dusty lot does nothing to shock him to his senses.

 _Oh well._

He's drawn to the glowing window like a moth to flame, unthinking and unguarded.

 _One way or another, things are about to change._

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Thanks again for all the encouragement, guys! I'm in the home stretch with writing, so keep feeding me thoughts! A good chunk after this chapter is already written, so you'll probably get quick updates for a bit. Cheers!


	14. Part Three - Chapter Five

XXX

William's hands shake as he moves, trance-like, toward the glowing window. Through a tiny crack in the blinds, he sees his mother. Her hair is shorter than he's used to, a more fiery shade of red. In her arms, a pajama-clad baby. The image lasts for only a split second before she moves out of his view.

The awe of seeing his young mother and baby self are quickly replaced by alarm when he realizes Mulder isn't in the room. His racing thoughts stop cold, however, when he hears the dull metal click behind him.

"Step away from the window."

His father's voice, low and dangerous.

Will slowly raises his hands but doesn't turn, keeping Mulder at his back as he walks toward the treeline.

"That's far enough," Mulder says before he can step into the shadows. "Turn around."

With a tense sigh, Will obeys, keeping his hooded head down as much as he can. He tries to appear calm but his heart is hammering in his chest as his eyes flick up to his father. He tries not to stare at the man who stands before him, gun leveled steadily at his chest. Mulder's green eyes are dark, his gaze suspicious and distrustful.

"Who are you?"

Will meets his eyes for a fraction of a second, trying to impart his sincerity.

"I can't tell you. But I'm here to help."

Mulder's eyes narrow.

"You called Scully this morning, didn't you?"

When Will nods, Mulder takes a step closer, his eyes flashing momentarily to the door to their room.

"What do you want with her? What do you want with my son?"

His voice is so raw that Will has to resist the urge to take a step back. Instead, he raises his hands a little higher.

"Only to protect them," he says softly. "And you. You're the one in danger."

"I've been in danger for years," Mulder counters. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"Two men have been following you," Will replies quietly. "I can't tell you their identities because from what I can tell, they don't have any. They're working on behalf of somebody in the government, and tomorrow night they're going to catch up with you. They'll kill you outside of the next motel."

Mulder stares at him, for the first time running out of questions. The muscles in his jaw work as he considers the apparent stranger's warning, but he doesn't lower his gun.

Before either man can speak again, the door opens and light floods out into the darkened parking lot. He turns his head, but the spark of confusion in Mulder's eyes tells Will that he has already seen.

His mother's voice sounds from the doorway, but Will doesn't dare turn to it.

"It's alright, Scully," Mulder calls quietly, lowering his gun slightly to show that he feels the threat is minimal. "It's your friend from the pay phone. We're just going to talk. Stay inside with William, I'll yell if I need you."

When she goes back inside, albeit reluctantly, Mulder raises the gun again, motioning Will around the corner to where the offices are. He has no choice but to obey, and when they come within range, the floodlight kicks on.

"Alright, take down your hood."

Will's heart beats heavily in his chest as he slowly reaches up for his hood. When it falls to his shoulders, Mulder's gaze hardens, suspicious again. He doesn't, however, seem surprised by the strange semi-translucence of the man before him. _He's seen weirder, I guess,_ Will thinks.

"What are you?" The question is posed as if he could be anything.

Holding Mulder's gaze, Will slowly lowers his hands.

"Human, to the best of my knowledge," he replies, trying to ease the tension a little. "My...appearance is a side effect of temporal displacement." He cringes a little, waiting to be written off as a lunatic.

Mulder's eyebrows raise only slightly.

"Temporal displacement? You're saying you're from a different time? Or what?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but yes. And if that's not enough to make you shoot me, nothing will, so could you put the gun down?"

After a long moment, Mulder slowly lowers the gun.

"Thanks."

"You want to tell me what the hell you're talking about?" Despite only having known his father for a matter of minutes, William recognizes that beneath his tough, demanding exterior, Mulder is starting to become curious enough to hear him out.

"I'm here because I know what happens," Will says carefully, knowing that he should try not to divulge too much about his identity. "I came to try to stop it."

"Me being killed," Mulder says flatly, not a question. "Tomorrow."

"Yes."

"Why would anyone put forth the effort to go back in time and keep me alive? The whole damn planet wants me dead, as far as I can tell. And who's to say it will stick? I might be killed next week even if I get lucky tomorrow."

"I have...a unique knowledge of your timeline," Will says. "I can tell you things about your enemies that will keep you a step ahead."

Mulder stares at him for a long moment, deliberating. Will tries to be patient, knowing that his parents have good reason not to trust anyone but each other.

"Who are you?" Mulder asks again, his voice tense. "I won't trust anything you've said until I know how you're connected to all this.

"You're important," William manages after a moment. "In my timeline. You're important. That's all I can say."

" _Who are you?_ "

William takes a shaky breath, trying to appear impassive as he meets Mulder's eyes.

"My name is Will. I'm...a friend."

Mulder stares, his jaw tensing as he tries not to search for the resemblance. Not that he would need to search; it's right there in front of him, written into William's face, into his voice and mannerisms, despite his ghost-like appearance.

"No."

He says it quickly, a sharp jab of denial as he backs away.

"No. I know what you're trying to do, and it's not happening this time."

Will starts after him, but Mulder raises the gun again, his eyes blazing.

"You stay back," he hisses, stealing a glance around the corner to the room where Scully and baby William are. "You took Samantha. You took my father. You've almost taken Scully from me and I'll be damned if you're going to come anywhere near our son."

"No, I-"

"I'm going to go back into that room now," Mulder says, low and dangerous. "And I'm going to get my family. We're going to drive away from here, and if you try to follow us, I will kill you."

Will's throat closes up at the words 'my family', and he can't help but move to follow.

"Wait, Mulder-"

Mulder whips back around, grabbing Will and throwing him up against the wall. The gun presses against his neck, cold metal beneath his jaw.

"I won't tell you again," Mulder growls. His forearm presses against Will's throat.

Will forces himself to hold his father's gaze, willing him to see the truth in his eyes.

"You were going to ask her to marry you," he says, barely a whisper beneath the crushing hold.

Mulder stops cold, his face a mask of shock for the briefest moment before he regains his composure.

"My mother wears a ring with her cross pendant," Will continues before Mulder can respond. "She found it- well, I found it, technically, tried to cram the whole box in my mouth…...a few weeks after your funeral. Your second funeral. But I guess I wasn't born for the first one."

Mulder's eyes flash with anger and fear. "I don't believe you."

"When you first came back from hiding, you and M- Scully decided to make Walter my god father. He was like another uncle, mostly. But after grandma died, he was the only person left to be there for Mom." Will's voice is starting to choke with emotion. "I wasn't. I was too busy working on this."

He gestures at himself, at Mulder.

"You want to know who from the future would go to the effort to keep you alive?" he whispers. "My name is William Scully. My father died when I was fifteen months old, in our car on the side of Interstate 81 in southern Pennsylvania, minutes after taking a bullet in the chest protecting me and my mother from two unknown assailants outside our motel room. I have no memories of him, and only two photographs."

Mulder stares, speechless. After a moment, he steps quickly back, releasing William and letting the gun drop.

"Look at me," Will chokes, blinking to keep his vision clear. "Look at me, and tell me you don't believe that I'm your son."

Mulder's face is unreadable.

"Half a dozen times, I met a woman who claimed to be my sister," he says slowly. "Looked just like her. Knew everything about her. But it wasn't her. It wasn't even the same woman every time."

He sighs, looking weary and beaten, years older than he is. "Clones, hybrids, time travelers….I don't know what to believe anymore."

Will is silent, still as the impossibly familiar face studies his own.

"You could be him," Mulder says finally, quietly. "William. I've always been a little surprised that he doesn't have Scully's eyes."

"Whether you believe that I am or not, you've got to listen to me."

Will's voice is pleading, and he can tell that his distress does not go unnoticed.

Sighing again, Mulder beckons him forward.

"Whoever you are, we should argue about it inside. Scully's probably a breath away from coming out here and shooting you regardless of what I say. I'd like for you to be able to explain yourself to her before that happens, especially if you are who you say you are."

He starts walking back to the motel room door, but Will makes no move to follow.

"I don't think I should meet her," he says, suddenly wary. "Or….the baby."

Mulder stops, waits for an explanation.

"This is all still very experimental," Will stammers, suddenly nervous. "I don't know what the rules are yet. It's probably ok with you, because in my timeline, we've basically never met," he swallows, trying not to let Mulder see how much that fact affects him. "But with them….it might not be a good idea."

Before Mulder can respond, a soft rustling behind him makes him whip around, raising his gun. The intruder steps out of the shadows, gun also raised.

"Dammit, Scully," Mulder breathes as he lowers his weapon.

Will ducks back into the shadows, pulling his hood back over his head.

"Shit," he mutters, chancing a glance back at his parents. Scully is looking at him suspiciously, but lowers her gun when Mulder's hand finds her arm. Will keeps his head down so she can't see his face.

"It's okay," Mulder murmurs to his partner before glancing back at Will.

"You were taking too long," she replies, tense but not apologetic. "I had to check."

"Everything's fine." His gaze is intense, and Will can tell that their conversations are, more often than not, wordless. "Trust me. Go back inside, I'll be there in a moment."

When she has disappeared around the corner, Will steps back into the light. The way that Mulder regards him is not quite trusting, but certainly more relaxed.

"Told you," he says with a ghost of a smile.

Will can't help but utter a soft chuckle.

"You should come inside," Mulder says, nodding back the way Scully had gone. "Things can barely get more messed up than they already are, apparently. Besides, I have to tell Scully something. She's not just going to let this go."

Will's brow creases as he frowns slightly. "I know she won't." He sighs. "I can't risk it, though."

He holds Mulder's gaze for a long moment, memorizing the planes of his face in case they never meet again. The thought makes him ache so hard that he almost caves, almost goes to the warm little room where he can sit and talk with both his parents for the first time in his life.

"Tell her whatever you think is best," he says finally. "But keep the blinds closed and the lights off tonight. Sleep in shifts, and watch the door."

Mulder looks at him confusedly, wary again.

"I thought you said it was tomorrow."

Will glances around at the shadows edgily. "Like I said, I don't know the rules. My being here could have changed everything."

Mulder nods, satisfied with this answer, and signifying that he will be cautious.

"I'll be close," Will continues. "But the fewer people who see me, the better. I'll stay in contact as much as I can."

He bites his lip. "In case I don't see you again-"

Mulder's eyes blaze determinedly. "You will."

"You believe me then?" Will hates how hopeful he sounds, a giddy schoolboy at the end of the world.

The ghosting smile is back for a moment before Mulder turns to walk away. "I want to."

XXX

Scully's anxiety is almost tangible as Mulder steps back into the little room, closing and locking the door behind him. She stands and goes to him immediately, her eyes demanding answers, fearful and protective.

"Who was that?" Her hand finds his; ever since they've been on the run, she's needed to keep physical contact with him, as if he will float away if she doesn't hold him to her.

"A friend of Skinner's, I think," Mulder lies easily, because it seems it could actually be the truth in some convoluted way. "He couldn't give me many solid details, but he knows that there are two men following us. He's going to stay close and keep an extra eye out."

As predicted, Scully isn't that quick to give it up.

"What was with all the secrecy? The hood?"

"If you get the chance to meet him, I'll let you ask him that one yourself," Mulder says, choosing his words carefully. "It's a little hard to explain. But nothing you need to worry about right now."

He tugs her by the hand that still holds him over to the bed where William sleeps. Carefully he pulls her down to the mattress and they lie together around the baby, as they had the night he was born, before Mulder had left.

Scully is remembering too, and her grip on his hand remains tight.

"On the phone this morning, he said you'd be killed," she breathes into the darkness.

Mulder presses his lips to her forehead, moves their joined hands to William's back.

"I know. He said the same to me tonight. He says he can help."

"Can we trust him?"

Mulder pulls back, brushing a hair from her face and giving her a small smile.

"Yeah, I think we can."

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Sorry in advance for confusing everyone with the double-William. By this point I'm almost exclusively calling adultWilliam Will and babyWilliam William, so that helps. Will and Mulder's first interaction was a super fun bit to write, so I hope you liked it. Review and let me know what you think!


	15. Part Three - Chapter Six

Thanks for all the love last chapter, everyone! You guys warm my twisted lil' fanfic-writing heart.

To Val, since I can't reply to guest reviews - I choked on my cereal when I read your take on Will, haha. Glad someone else is on the same page with me there (really, it happened without my consent.)

Anyway, here's more. Enjoy!

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Still reeling from the impossible interaction, Will stands still at the shadowy edge of the parking lot, staring after Mulder long after his father has disappeared into the little motel room.

He waits there at the treeline until he sees the light in their window turn off, then pulls his hood closer over his head and goes to the motel's office to buy himself a room for the night. Everything on his person was painstakingly selected for this trip, including the small amount of cash he carries, all bills from prior to 2003, just in case. The desk attendant doesn't give him a second glance, tiredly handing him a key without looking up from her crossword puzzle.

Once inside the dusty little room, he sits by the window, not turning the light on, and silently watching the lot for any signs of danger.

A half hour or so later, a slight rustle at their curtains tells him that either Mulder or Scully is doing the same. It makes Will feel oddly comforted.

Despite their constant vigilance, the night passes with no disturbance. In the morning, he watches from behind the curtains as they pack their few belongings into the car with the baby. Mulder gives the lot a quick sweep before getting in the car, his eyes lingering a few seconds too long at Will's window. As soon as he can be sure he won't be seen, Will gets in his stolen car to follow.

Thankfully, they head west, avoiding I-81. After a few hours, they pull into a small town, grabbing some food from a gas station for lunch. Carefully purchasing a large coffee and soggy pre-wrapped sub for himself, Will keeps a good distance between them, but he can tell Mulder is very much aware of his presence.

After taking a bag of travel groceries back to their car, Mulder walks very deliberately to a picnic table under the awning of the attached ice cream shop, sets another bag on it, and goes back to the car. They pull out onto the empty stretch of highway slowly, and Will knows that the bag is for him.

He retrieves it cautiously, hood down as he moves through the sunny lot, and hurries back to the car to find that it is a temporary-service cell phone. An ancient artifact by his standards, but it will be more than enough. He gets back on the road, and a few moments later, the phone rings.

"Alright, where are we going?" Mulder's voice asks before he can speak. The sound still sends a jolt through him.

"This is good," Will says, his eyes on their distant bumper. "West is good. If we shake them today, you can double back and go home. Once he has the information I'm going to give you, Walter will be able to protect you."

"And if we don't shake them?"

Will takes a deep breath. "Then we improvise."

XXX

As with the previous night, they settle down at a small roadside motel. Scully stands watchfully at the window as she calls for food delivery, and Will thinks that maybe she can see him in his darkened window across the lot. He gives a slight nod, but she only stares. They are a hundred miles from the motel where Will had been nearly orphaned twenty-three years ago in his time, but he knows their safety won't come that easily.

Midnight comes and goes with not so much as a pair of headlights down the highway. Anxious, Will takes out the cell phone Mulder gave him.

He answers on the first ring.

"What do you think? Did we lose them?" Despite his attempts to mask it, the tension in his voice is easily picked up on by Will on the other end of the line.

"No way to know yet," Will says grimly, though he'd seen mysterious men in every shadow, suspected cars of tailing them all day, his own nerves getting to him.

"Is my m- is Scully awake?"

"Yeah, she won't go to sleep."

"Good. Have her get the baby ready just in case."

"Way ahead of you."

Mulder pauses. "Do you have a weapon?"

For probably the fiftieth time that day, Will reaches down to his ankle holster, feeling for the familiar weight of his gun. Scully had raised him on all kinds of self-defense, and he'd gotten licensed to carry as soon as he was old enough.

"Yeah, I brought my gun back with me. I hope it works over here."

"Me too. If-"

Movement from the darkened road catches Will's eye and he freezes, breath suddenly stuck in his throat.

"Mulder." The tone of his whispered interjection makes Mulder stop talking immediately.

A car pulls into the farthest corner of the lot, headlights turned off. Silently, two men step out, darkly clad. They glance around before moving along the building's edge to the room where Mulder and Scully sit tensely in the dark.

"It's them," Will breathes. "Stay where you are. I'm going to try to take them by surprise. When you have a chance, run for the car. If you have an open shot on one of them, take it."

"What about you?" Mulder's voice is low and tense.

Will's hand is on his gun, pulling it silently free as he watches the man pass in front of his window.

"Don't worry about me- I'll find you later. Just get out of here."

He hangs up, pocketing the phone and moving quietly to the door.

Twenty yards away, backs turned, neither man notices as he slips silently out of his room, ducking quickly behind the building. Gun held out before him, he darts along the shadowy back sidewalk, hoping to come around the other side and take the would-be attackers by surprise.

Poking his head around the corner, Will sees the smaller of the two men beside the window, watching the lot while the bigger man kneels in front of the door, pulling out a lock pick.

Will quickly pulls back, but the man standing watch has seen him. He raises his gun to take a shot, but Will is too quick, darting back around the corner.

The lookout follows, gun outstretched. In the split second before he can fire, Will strikes out at his forearm, knocking him off his aim.

Will tries to get his gun between them, but the other man ducks beneath his arm, taking him at the middle in a one-armed tackle.

They tumble to the ground, each grappling for the other's gun hand.

In the motel room, Mulder and Scully wait, scarcely daring to breathe as they listen to the faint sounds of struggle on the other side of the door. Mostly, though, they listen to the telltale click of the lock pick as it works on the handle. Mulder waits pressed against the wall behind the door, and the moment the door swings open, he shoves it back with all his strength, knocking the intruder to the ground.

Mulder steps quickly through the door ahead of his partner, kicking at his downed enemy's hand as he reaches for a gun, which skitters across the pavement.

"Get William to the car," Mulder pants back to Scully, holding his gun on the prone, disarmed man. Scully darts out of the room, warily scanning the parking lot before making for the car.

In the grass at the corner of the building, Will's opponent is starting to gain the upper hand, pinning his right arm against the ground, rendering his gun useless. Will feels the cold metal of the other man's weapon graze his temple and jerks aside, throwing his left arm out just in time to knock the man's aim off by a couple inches as he pulls the trigger. The shot rings out beside Will's ear, temporarily deafening him as the bullet whistles overhead into the woods.

Mulder's stomach twists with unexpected dread as he turns to the sound. The bigger man moves to lunge at him, but Mulder strikes him down again, running around the building towards the gunshot.

Will struggles dazedly beneath his attacker, ears ringing as the other man regains his balance to press the gun once more to his head. Will holds an arm weakly up in self-defense, but stands no chance. Afraid of missing his mark as the two wrestle, Mulder takes a dive instead, tackling the man off of Will. A shot fires off in the scuffle, and the assailant cries out as a bullet pierces his shoulder. He lies clutching his wound as Mulder stands, panting.

She has just gotten William strapped into his carseat when Scully feels herself yanked backward, a crushing force tightening around her neck as she cries out. Her elbow connects forcefully with the big man's ribs, but he doesn't let up his attack. William begins to cry in the back seat.

"SCULLY!" Mulder yells as he dashes across the lot towards the sound of her cry, abandoning Will in favor of his partner and the baby. Will tries to shake the ringing in his ears as he pushes himself up onto his side. Beside him, the smaller man groans, slowly rising through his pain as well.

Scully gasps as the choking hold lifts her off her feet, her struggles useless as the grip tightens around her airway.

Several yards away, Mulder stops dead, leveling his gun with steady hands and picking the big man off with a point-blank shot over Scully's shoulder, right between his eyes. She gasps a ragged breath as they both crumple to the ground.

The smaller man still holds his gun, and as he struggles to sit up, he aims it shakily in the direction of the car. Will lets out a wordless yell as he brings his own gun up, panic cutting through his mind as he sees the same terrible scene play out from a slightly different angle.

Will's shot fires off a half-second before his enemy's, taking him in the chest just as he pulls the trigger.

Mid-dash to Scully, Mulder stumbles and falls with a cry.

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	16. Part Three - Chapter Seven

Will's second shot takes half of the man's skull with it, and finally he slumps dead on the ground.

"Mulder!" Scully's yell is desperate and fearful as she struggles to extract herself from beneath the dead weight of the man who has fallen on her.

Will's ears are ringing anew with the added pain of the subsequent gunshots, but his dizziness has subsided enough for him to stand and stumble frantically to where Mulder has fallen. He's beyond caring that she'll see his face as he moves dazedly to where his mother cradles his father's head, panicked words spilling from her mouth as she looks around for more danger.

"Mulder," Will gasps as he drops to his knees beside them. Scully stares for long enough to tell him that she has noticed his strange appearance, but her eyes quickly turn back to her partner.

"I'm okay," Mulder groans through gritted teeth, clutching at the place where blood flows from the wound in his left thigh. A sizeable pool of blood has spread beneath him already and he starts to tremble.

He's alive, Will thinks with a jolt. _He's going to live._

His adrenaline and instincts take over and he pulls off his hoodie, starting a tear with his teeth then ripping the fabric the rest of the way to separate a sleeve from the body.

"Start the car," he says, not looking at Scully as he works, wrapping the strip of cloth tightly around Mulder's leg at the bullet hole, a temporary tourniquet.

Scully stares, looking as if she might shoot him if he touches Mulder again.

"Do what he says, Scully," Mulder grinds out, his words coming in a pained hiss as Will ties the makeshift bandage tightly. Scully concedes, getting in the driver's seat as Will wraps an arm around Mulder's shoulder, half-lifting him into the back of the car beside the crying baby in his car seat.

"There's a hospital about eleven miles up the road," Will says as he gets in the passenger seat, avoiding Scully's eyes as he turns to Mulder in the back.

"Are you going to pass out?"

Mulder manages a weak laugh, followed by another groan. "Not yet."

"Good," Will says, trying to calm his racing heart. "Take your hand off your leg, I'm going to put pressure on the wound. You've already lost enough blood to put you at risk."

Wadding the tattered hoodie up, Will twists around to press it firmly into the hole in Mulder's leg. Mulder groans sharply, causing Scully to look in the rear-view mirror in alarm.

"Do you have medical training?" she asks stiffly, eyes on her partner in the mirror.

It's Will's turn to bite back a dark laugh. "Yes."

William has stopped crying, but makes a fitful noise from the backseat.

"Hey, buddy," Mulder murmurs, reaching for his son and offering a finger for the tiny flailing hand to grab. "You okay?"

William coos, comforted by his father's voice. Mulder smiles at him, his eyes starting to glaze over from pain and blood loss.

Will watches the interaction with wide eyes, thinking that nobody in the world has ever experienced something so surreal.

Sensing there's something she's missing, Scully turns to Will, taking in his not-quite-part-of-this-reality appearance with troubled eyes. He meets her gaze, silent as she studies him. Something in her face tells him that she has picked up on his likeness a lot faster than Mulder did.

"Who are you?"

Will says nothing, but Mulder answers her from the back seat.

"He's your son, Scully," he says, his voice tight and somewhat delirious sounding. "Looks a lot like the old man, huh?"

Scully's eyes widen as she looks back at Will.

"Mulder, what are you saying?" she sounds shaken.

Will lowers his eyes, turning back to Mulder in the seat behind him. The shirt has become saturated with blood, covering Will's hands as he presses it against the wound.

Mulder's eyes flutter weakly and drift shut as his head falls to the side.

Will's free hand goes immediately to his father's neck, his own heart pounding as he feels for a pulse.

After a moment, he sighs in relief.

"He passed out," he says without looking at Scully. "Your exit is coming up."

He can feel her eyes on him, but she doesn't say another word as she turns off the highway. After a moment, they see glowing signs for the emergency room.

Scully is still driving a little too fast as she pulls up, lurching the car into park and hurrying around to Mulder's door. Will moves to help her, but realizes with a jolt of panic that he has no disguise; his hoodie is ripped and ruined, keeping Mulder from bleeding out.

"I can't go in there," he says, and Scully can hear the desperation in his voice.

"Stay with the car then," she says brusquely, focused on Mulder. She runs a hand over his face and checks his pulse, but he doesn't stir. She turns to run into the building, calling for a stretcher before dashing back out.

Will gets out of the car, moving around to the driver's side where the light from the doorway is blocked, giving him a little bit of cover before the team of nurses can see him.

Scully brushes past him as they lift Mulder out of the car, beelining for William. The baby is crying again, probably annoyed that he hasn't been allowed to sleep at his usual time.

Instinctively, Will puts a hand at her shoulder, but draws back before she can react.

"I can look after him," he says quietly, sincerely. "You should make sure Mulder's going to be okay."

She turns, studying his face again with wary eyes.

"I don't know who you are, but I'm going to need more of an explanation than what I've got before I leave you alone with my son."

His exasperated sigh is so Mulder-like that she falters a little, staring again at his sharp chin and hazel eyes.

"Look, I know better than anyone the wrath that awaits whoever tries to fuck with that child," he says, perhaps a little harshly. "I'll tell you everything later, but for now the fact that Mulder trusts me should be enough."

He sighs again, suddenly feeling very tired. An unhappy cry from the backseat tells him that William feels the same way.

"Besides," he says, a little more softly. "The kid wants to sleep. Carting him around a bright hospital isn't going to make anyone happy."

The EMT's have just finished strapping Mulder into the stretcher and start to wheel him back toward the doors.

"Go take care of your partner," Will says, his concern and sincerity bare in his voice. "I went to a lot of trouble to get here and save his life, and I'd prefer it stays saved. I promise we'll both be here when you get back. I'm the last person in the world who wants anything to happen to this kid."

Scully grinds her teeth but shuts the car door, finally caving.

"I'll come to find you as soon as I know he's okay," she says, half a warning, before dashing after the stretcher carrying her unconscious partner into the hospital. As he watches her disappear down the hall, one hand on Mulder's forehead as they rush him to the ICU, Will tries to let himself feel comforted. From what he knows of his parents' past, they'd gone to the literal ends of the earth to keep each other alive on more than one occasion. Beyond that, he knows his mother is a brilliant doctor, her finely-honed scientific mind made all the more powerful by her time with Mulder and the X-files. He can only pray that her time with Mulder is not about to be up.

When she has disappeared into the building, Will gets in the driver's seat, pulling the car around to a parking spot in a dark corner of the lot, feeling safest where no one can see him.

For the first time wondering about his own ticking clock in their timeline, Will takes a deep breath and resigns himself to wait.

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Sorry for that evil cliffhanger last chapter, this bit of the story is hard to divide into chapters so I didn't have much of a choice. More soon! Give me your thoughts, as always :)


	17. Part Three - Chapter Eight

As always, thanks for the reviews! Since you guys all love Will so much, here's some fun Will/William interaction. This thing is gradually starting to come to an end, but I know i'm going to end up writing more than I ever wanted to, as usual. Enjoy!

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Sitting in the car in a dark corner of the hospital parking lot, Will tries to relax. His heart is still hammering from the adrenaline rush of the fight and subsequent flight. He takes deep, even breaths, running anxious hands through his hair as he thinks of all the blood that Mulder lost, realizing only after he's smeared it all over the place that he's still covered in a good amount of said blood.

In the back seat, William continues to cry halfheartedly. Will turns to see why he isn't sleeping yet, and sees him reaching for a pacifier tethered to the car seat, dangling just out of his reach.

Wiping his hand clean before turning to the baby, Will can't help but stare at him. Just over a year old, the cranky, gurgling child from his baby photo album stares back, not amused at the turn his night has taken.

"Aren't you getting a little old for this thing, kid?" Will says as he reaches for the pacifier.

William looks at him unhappily.

"Da!" He complains as he reaches for it again.

"Oh, hell," Will mutters, quickly giving the baby his pacifier. "No kid, I'm not your dad. Jesus, this is messed up. I should have let Mom take you inside."

He turns back around, now feeling incredibly uncomfortable even looking at the baby. After a few minutes, a glance in the rearview mirror confirms that the kid is fast asleep, and Will relaxes a little.

He waits for word from Scully for almost two hours, his anxiety mounting until he starts to consider taking the baby and going into the hospital to find them.

He's moments from executing his ill-conceived plan when Scully appears at the window, breathless; she'd been running. Will quickly unlocks the doors, letting her into the passenger seat. She instantly turns to check on William, finally letting out her breath when she sees him sleeping.

"Sorry," Will mumbles apologetically as he sees her receding panic. "I thought it would be best if I stayed where nobody can see me. How's Mulder?"

Scully closes her eyes, and for one heart-stopping moment, he fears the worst.

"He's going to be alright," she says tiredly, and Will realizes that she's just struggling to understand everything that has happened.

Opening her eyes, she pulls out a large paper bag from the general store next to the hospital.

"I got you a new hoodie," she says, handing it to him somewhat awkwardly. "And I thought of a way you can come inside." She holds up a small plastic disc, and it takes Will a moment to realize that it's one of those powder makeup things with the mirror inside. After slipping the hoodie over his head, he turns to her, letting her brush the flesh-toned powder across his cheeks and forehead.

As Scully works, Will does his best to stay still, but he fails at holding back a smile as she powders his nose.

"What?" she asks, and he can hear the hint of a smile in her voice.

"Nothing," he chuckles, closing his eyes so she can dust across them. "This has just been a very, very strange day. An hour ago, the baby called me 'Da'. Having you do my makeup isn't quite that weird, but it still definitely makes the list."

Scully says nothing, but when he opens his eyes, her lips are turned up ever so slightly.

"Do I look like a real person now?"

Scully's inspection is a little too brief; he can tell she is still struggling to figure out how to interact with him.

"If you keep your hood up, you'll pass. Come on."

She gets out of the car, lifts a still-sleeping William into her arms, and leads the way into the hospital.

Will keeps his head down as they walk through the brightly-lit halls, but nobody gives him a second glance. They stop at a closed door.

"It's supposed to be immediate family only in the room right now," Scully says quietly. "I'm going to have to talk to the doctor for a minute to get you in. If anybody asks, you're Mulder's younger brother."

She shifts the baby in her arms. "Can you take William while I make sure everything's ok?"

"Oh. Um- I don't think I should," Will stammers uncertainly. "I mean, he's...I…"

"It's just for a few moments, you'll be fine." Scully hands him the baby anyway.

Will takes the kid gingerly, laying him against his chest with a fatherly ease. Despite his hesitation to interact with baby William, he's usually great with children.

"Alright, but it's your fault if the universe collapses or something."

Scully gives him a look. "I'll be right back."

Inside the room, Scully has a short, quiet conversation with the doctor, convincing him to let them have a few minutes alone. She promises that she's qualified to handle anything that might come up, and otherwise she'll call him back in. Grudgingly, he leaves.

Scully goes to her partner's side, sitting on the edge of the bed. He's semi-conscious and stirs as she smooths a hand over his hair. He looks up with a half-lucid smile, gazing affectionately at her for a moment. His hand finds hers and their fingers intertwine.

"Where's Will?"

It takes her a moment to realize he's not asking about the baby.

"He's out in the hall with William. I'll bring them inside in a moment."

"Scully," his voice is still weak and raspy from being under anaesthesia, but she can hear the humor intended in his scolding tone. "Do you really want to be responsible for the end of the world?"

She can't help a soft laugh. "That's more or less the same thing he said."

"Smart kid." Mulder blinks up at her, looking slightly more awake. "How are you doing with all this?"

Scully sighs. "Well, I'm still waiting for a more concrete explanation."

"Bring him in, then."

In the hall, Will is swaying gently back and forth while William sleeps soundly, drooling slightly onto Will's collarbone. Scully beckons him in, shutting the door behind them.

His eyes flash nervously to the bed, but he relaxes visibly when he sees that Mulder is awake.

"Well, the world didn't end," he jokes shyly, pulling his hood back.

"No," Scully muses, suddenly feeling like deja vu. "It didn't."

Will moves to hand the baby back to her, but Mulder interjects from the bed.

"I'll take him," he says, motioning Scully over to sit back on the bed with him. "Sit me up a bit, will you?"

She messes with the reclining controls on the hospital bed then retakes her spot on the narrow mattress, careful to avoid Mulder's injured leg. When he's sitting up, Will hands him the sleeping baby and takes the chair beside the bed.

As he looks at them together, the weight of what he has done finally sets in and Will puts his face in his hands, suddenly overcome with emotion and exhaustion.

"Will?" Mulder's voice is quiet, concerned.

"I'm sorry," he says, taking a deep breath and straightening up to face them. "For me, this night happened twenty-three years ago, only it ended with my mother in the hospital and my father in the morgue."

He stares at a wrinkle in the sheet on Mulder's leg, unable to meet either of their eyes.

"This is the first time in twenty-three years that we…. that I….." he trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence.

"Well I, for one, am pretty glad to be here," Mulder says with a comforting smile as he rubs baby William's back. Will relaxes a little more.

Scully's face suggests that she's already got a headache trying to think his words through.

"Ok, so you….you, what? Came back in time to stop Mulder from being killed?"

"That's the easiest way to put it, yeah," Will says somewhat tiredly, prepared for her to list through various laws of science to tell him that time travel is not, in fact, possible.

Surprisingly, she doesn't. Instead, she asks simply, "How?"

"Well, I'm not going to try to explain the whole process to you, but I've been working with a government-funded research group out of a semi-secret basement lab at MIT. It took us a few years to get everything together, but considering the magnitude of the discovery, it all happened pretty fast. Well, we're technically still in the trial stages. What I did wasn't sanctioned. One of my friends on the team helped me hijack one of the devices to pull this off."

"You raised another government scientist, Scully, figures," Mulder chuckles.

"Actually," Will says, cracking his own smile. "She was pretty much against it the whole way. Said I couldn't spend my life obsessing over trying to change the past."

"Like your ol' dad. Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Mulder-"

"Kidding, Scully. Keep going, Will."

Will smiles again at their banter. "There's not much more to tell, really," he says with a shrug.

"No, hold on," Scully says, her brow knitting together as she does the math. "If this was 23 years ago for you, you're only 24. How old were you when you started working on this government project?"

Will grins. "Nineteen. I had just finished my first degree at that point. Something about me potentially being part superhuman or something. Not a conversation you- my mom really liked to have. She only told me in the first place after I threatened to make a spectacle out of myself by winning jeopardy or something in middle school."

Mulder laughs at this.

"So much for not letting the kid know how messed up we all are."

Scully shoots him a look, then turns uncertainly back to Will. He can tell by her cautious demeanor that she's not quite ready to believe him, but the fact that she is still willing to have the conversation is enough for now.

"So, what happens now? You obviously can't stay here."

"No, I can't. And neither can you." Will's expression is tense as he turns once more to his father, anxiety tainting his features at the thought of the pain and danger that still stands between Mulder and actual safety. "There will be more like those two men, and they'll know you're here by now. We have to get to Walter with what I know about them, and then you have to get back into hiding until he can track them down."

Scully balks, looking from Will to Mulder and back in disbelief.

"We can't move him!" Her sudden fear is almost tangible. "If his wound reopens on the road..."

She trails off, but Will knows the end of the sentence. _He could bleed out and die_. Besides that, Mulder can't even stand unsupported, let alone walk.

"We have no choice," Will says firmly, willing his mother to trust him, and hoping desperately that he's deserving of said trust. "And we have to move fast. The longer I stay with you, the greater chance there is of them figuring out who I am. If that happens, we're all as good as dead."

"I'll be fine, Scully," Mulder interrupts, albeit a little weakly from the pain and drugs. "Seeing as I'm presently not dead, I'm feeling pretty inclined to keep doing what he says."

Will glances around the room, his mind already racing as he thinks of how to get them out unnoticed.

"Be right back," he mutters, ducking out into the hall before either of them can stop him.

The corridor is still and empty but for a weary-eyed orderly who blinks in tired confusion at Will as he passes. It takes him a moment to remember that his hood is down and he probably looks a little off despite the careful layer of makeup applied by Scully.

The orderly shakes her head as she passes, looking back to the clipboard she carries and apparently deciding she needs another cup of coffee.

Too close, Will thinks, slipping the hood back up and ducking his head.

Moments later, however, he's back in the relatively safety of the little room, pushing the wheelchair he'd snagged from a few rooms down. Positioning it beside the bed, he waits for Mulder to hand the baby back to his partner before reaching behind his father's back to help him out of the bed.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice somewhat strained as he maneuvers Mulder into the chair. "Your leg should still be elevated; this isn't going to feel great."

"Way ahead of you, kid." Mulder's voice is tight, his face quickly growing pale. Will tries to avoid the bandaged bullet wound in his father's leg, but Mulder still groans sharply as his weight settles onto it in the chair.

"I'm fine," he mutters quickly as both Scully and Will flinch, but a thin sheen of sweat has already broken out on his brow. "Let's get out of here."

With a quick nod, Will grabs the wheelchair handles and starts for the door.

"Wait!" Without looking to see if they have listened, Scully darts back to the far side of the room, rummaging through the cabinet beside the IV stand. William murmurs fitfully against her neck, but doesn't wake as she grabs a handful of vials and syringes, stuffing them in her jacket pocket.

"If he's in agony the whole time, we're not going to get anywhere fast," she says in explanation, glancing uncertainly at Will.

Mulder breathes a grim chuckle, drawing their attention to his tight, pained smile.

"I love you, too, Scully."

It takes a bit of maneuvering to avoid the sparse late-night hospital staff, but after a few minutes they make it out to the parking lot. Scully buckles the sleeping baby into his carseat as Will pushes the passenger seat as far back as it will go, reclining the top half so that Mulder can lie down, at least a little.

"Alright, one more," he says encouragingly, noticing how much weaker Mulder looks already from the physical stress of being moved too soon. "Put your arm around my shoulder, don't put any weight on that leg."

"Trying," Mulder grinds out, his hand tight on Will's arm as they hobble together to get him into the car. Finally, he settles back into the passenger seat, panting and shaking slightly. When the pain has subsided a little, he reaches for the seatbelt, smiling wryly at Will.

"Safety first," he jokes, but Will barely hears it. His vision has started to swirl, going fuzzy at the edges, and Mulder's voice echoes to him from much farther than the mere inches that separate them. Suddenly, a splitting pain shocks through his head. His legs tremble before giving out and Will falls to his knees with a cry.


	18. Part Three - Chapter Nine

My apologies in advance - the next chapter after this will probably take until mid-next week. This one is a little intense, and I need to let my brain strength build back up after writing it, I think.

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Will's fingers clutch like talons against his skull, as if he could scratch through skin and bone to find the source of his pain and dig it out. Somewhere in a foggy, distant part of his mind he is aware of the harsh cry that has torn past his lips, tapering out into a low groan.

"Scully!" Mulder calls sharply, and she dashes around, thinking it was her partner who had cried out. When she sees Will hunched beside the car, one hand clutching his head, she looks at Mulder, bewildered.

"What's happening?"

Will's other hand flails out, catching the tail of Scully's jacket and pulling her down beside him. Barely clinging to consciousness, he fumbles shakily for the tiny digital control pad in his pocket, all but forgotten since he'd phased out of the lab in 2026.

"Red button," he gasps, unable to see but feeling her hands meet his to take it. "Then 07214. _Quickly!_ "

She obeys without question, though in their proximity he can feel her hands shaking. Or maybe it's just him. The familiar tingling starts to spread and panic grips him. _No_ , he thinks desperately. _Not yet._ His hand grips his mother's wrist tightly, as if physical contact could ground him here in her time.

"Done," she breathes, pocketing the device to look him over. Gradually, the pain and disorientation subsides and he slumps back against the wheel of the Explorer, vaguely aware of his mother's hands at his throat, his forehead.

"Is he okay?" Mulder's voice is anxious from the still open passenger door. "Will, what's going on?"

"They found me," Will groans. "In my time. Trying to pull me back early." Keeping his eyes shut tight against the lingering dizziness and nausea, Will reaches into his pocket again. "If Mills is with them, I have about five minutes," he pants, handing Mulder the envelope addressed to Skinner. "Put this somewhere you'll find it tomorrow. Once it gets to Walter, you should be safe."

"What's going to happen in five minutes?" Mulder asks, the concern in his voice bordering on panic. "And what about tomorrow?"

"I'll be pulled back into my own timeline. I have two more override codes I can use until the project director stops me. If he's not there, I have as long as it takes him to be. Maybe a couple hours. They'd try to fix it without calling him first." He bites his lip. "And tomorrow you won't remember me. No more than you'd remember someone you saw in a dream. You'll forget completely by the end of the week."

Mulder falls silent, unsure how to respond.

"I gave you what you need," Will says after a moment, finally starting to feel alright again. "You have to get out of here before someone finds you."

Scully glances warily around the darkened lot. "What will you do?"

"I have to get back to Massachusetts," Will replies, realizing as he speaks just how far he is yet from having succeeded. "None of the change I've affected here will be guaranteed until I'm back in my own time. And I can't phase back from just anywhere; I've got to be in the coordinates I departed from- a lab at MIT."

"What happens if your team brings you back before you get there?" From the somber tone of his voice, Mulder already knows that the answer won't be good.

"Don't know, it's never been done," Will rubs at his temple. "Nothing fun though, based on the headache that little spin left me with." He looks around the lot as he drags himself to his feet. "I need to steal a car."

"Like hell," Mulder calls from the passenger seat before he can move toward the little gold Honda beside them. "If you collapse like that again driving and nothing that happened today sticks, you'll have gotten yourself killed for nothing. Scully, get him in the car."

"It's a four hour drive to MIT from here," Will argues, brushing Scully's hand away and starting towards the Honda anyway. "You're in no condition to be in a car for that long. And you need to be heading in the opposite direction. If-"

The rest of the sentence dies on his lips, cut off by a strangled yell as the splitting pain returns without warning.

In the dim vestiges of his awareness, Will can feel that he's on his back on the concrete, though the fall and the impact were lost on him. Distantly he can hear his parents; Scully's voice close by his ear, edged with concern, Mulder shouting indiscernably in the background.

Kneeling again beside Will on the pavement, Scully can only watch in horror as the strange young man who claims to be her grown-up son writhes on the ground before her. The pained groan trapped between his clenched teeth builds, finally tearing past his lips in an agonized half-scream. As she watches helplessly, his prone form wavers like a bad T.V. signal, his extremities blurring farther into the bizarre state of semi-translucence, eliciting another sharp cry before snapping back.

Through the blinding pain Will hears Scully's frantic voice and remembers that she holds the power to make it stop. Though he is barely coherent enough to call to mind his own name, somehow he recalls the string of numbers, embedded in his recent memory in case of such an emergency.

" _Red,_ " Will grinds out, utterly failing to suppress the desperation in his voice as his back arches against the pavement. "One, zero…. _eightfourthree_ …. _NINE!_ "

Scully's shaking hands type the numbers, and the pain subsides just enough for Will to breathe again, taking a gasping breath and trying to unclench his white-knuckled fists.

"We're out of time, Scully!" he hears Mulder hiss from somewhere above, and then his mother's arms are behind his back, struggling to drag him up from the ground.

"Work with me, Will," she gasps, unable to fully support his weight. Even in his aching haze, he realizes with a jolt that it's the first time she's called him by name since hearing his unbelievable story. Before he can react to the thought, he lurches forward, only barely forcing back the vicious stab of nausea that clutches suddenly at his gut.

" _Scully!_ "

The urgency in Mulder's tone makes Will finally open his eyes, looking around for the source of his father's distress as he stumbles gracelessly to the car half-supported by Scully. It doesn't matter that his vision is still blurry, because it is plenty easy to make out the dark forms of four men running at them from the direction of the hospital.

When he's in she shuts the door behind him, flinging herself into the driver's seat and peeling out of the parking lot with a screech just as the unknown men would have reached them.

" _Go!"_ Mulder yells, but his voice is already slipping away again, pushed backward as Will's mind gives precedence to another swell of blinding agony. Feeling as if his skull is being split in two, Will presses his hands to his temples, grinding his teeth together and squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. He feels his body twitch involuntarily, a less-than-gentle tug from his own timeline that makes him scream again. Had Mulder or Scully been looking back, they would have seen him flicker out of sight entirely for a fraction of a second.

 _It's not going to work_ , he thinks with a jolt of dismay. _Why won't they let me get back first?_ Something must be wrong with the connection; if anyone was paying attention they'd see what they're doing to him and stop.

 _Right?_

Unless they have decided that his life is less important than preserving the timeline.

He can't bring himself to believe that. If anyone is watching him on the monitor, anyone with a shred of a conscience, they'd intervene.

Another invisible spike driven into his skull makes Will cry out again, twisting helplessly in his seat as his body jerks and fades towards its counterpart in 2026 Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beside him, William gives a distressed whimper, once again roused from sleep by the chaos. Will can barely hear it.

"Damn it, Travis!" he grinds out, half a yell. It's a matter of moments before he passes out, or worse. " _You're going to kill me!_ "

He can't tell if the car is going eighty miles an hour or parked on the side of the road, but distantly he hears Mulder's voice from the front seat, urgently trying get through to him. He tries to form a response but can't, and even his father's voice fades as Will feels his strength drain, consciousness ebbing quickly away into a warm, dark nothing.

The last thing he's aware of is William's wide eyes beside him and a tiny hand reaching to touch his face.


	19. Part Three - Chapter Ten

Surprisingly happy with this chapter, despite the fact that it did a few things I didn't intend originally. Let me know how you feel about them, because I'm still trying to figure it out myself haha. The end is near, folks!

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Low, pulsing strobes of light swell in and out of the darkness, drawing slowly near and then receding at regular intervals. A dull, steady hum accompanies the rolling waves of illumination, fluctuating neither in speed nor pitch.

 _Pain._

The miserable sensation had not gone anywhere, but as his senses gather and his awareness mounts, the ache between his temples builds, demanding attention. It is enough to spark his groggy brain back into function, and some unremembered fear pricks uneasy at the edges of his mind, spurring a fresh trickle of adrenaline through his thoroughly-taxed nerves.

Consciousness comes quicker than his body would like; even his blood seems to protest as he drags his eyes open, trying and failing to rise and make sense of the confusing cacophony of stimuli.

Several glowing streetlights pulse past before he squeezes his eyes shut again, the directness of the light agitating his pounding headache.

Highway.

That explains the hum; tires on pavement, a thready whine indicating the RPM and resulting high speed of the vehicle, though he can only feel its gentle sway.

"Try to stay still," a familiar female voice murmurs from nearby, soft and concerned. "You're in rough shape."

Not the voice he had expected to hear, if any.

A hoarse groan precedes his first attempt at speech. "Mom?"

Silence, uncertain and confusing. Then, from somewhere even nearer, the inquisitive gurgle of a small child. It is enough to force him the rest of the way awake, lucidity hitting him unwanted like a sack of bricks, accompanied by frightening and fractured memories.

Will's eyes flicker open once more, though he has the sense to stay still apart from looking away from the painfully bright streetlights flashing by. His young mother's eyes are on him in the rear-view mirror. He sees in them her concern, as well as her discomfort. Will's own eyes fall shut once more as he tries to think.

 _Right. She's still not convinced. Or just too freaked out, maybe._

"Sorry." His voice comes out a little stronger. "Dana. I'm not calling you 'Scully'."

"Dana works," she says, a little more relaxed. "How do you feel?"

"Not great," he admits, though the pain has dulled slightly in deference to his growing confusion. "Not dead, though. And I'm still here….now, I mean. What happened?"

"I'm not really sure." Scully sounds troubled. "Who's Travis?"

"A co-worker...a friend. He's the one who helped me get here."

"Well, he must have done something," she offers. "You- I don't know what happened, but you were in pain. You yelled for him right before you passed out. There haven't been any...episodes...since."

Eyes still closed, Will nods, sending a silent thank-you to his friend. Scully falls silent again and Will suddenly realizes that one voice has been alarmingly absent from their exchange. His eyes fly open again as he flinches upright, hissing slightly at the pain his sudden movement causes.

" _Mulder-_ "

In the reclined passenger seat, his father is still, his head tipped sideways to lean against the headrest.

"Just sleeping," Scully says quickly, though he notices that her voice is tight, an easy indicator that her partner's condition is bad enough to worry her. Will's heart continues to pound heavily as he thinks that Mulder's form is too perfectly still for natural sleep.

"I drugged him," Scully sighs, seeing Will's expression. "He was going to hurt himself more by fussing over you."

Will lets himself relax, knowing that Mulder will heal easier while unconscious. He flashes back to Scully's quick instinct to steal drugs from the hospital and wonders if this wasn't the first time she's had to medicate her stubborn and often reckless partner into unwilling submission.

Outside, a hazy dawn is beginning to creep over the horizon ahead of them, tendrils of pale pink reaching to touch the underbelly of the bruise-colored sky. Scrambling to think back over the time that has passed since he first landed in this decade, Will realizes that several hours must have gone by since their flight from the hospital.

"Where are we?"

Scully's hands twist anxiously on the steering wheel, and he thinks that fear must be the only thing keeping her awake.

"Close. You've been out for a while."

Her nervousness is contagious and Will finds himself thinking back to the four unidentified men who had chased them in the parking lot. He glances behind them on the freeway.

"Were we followed?"

"I don't think so," Scully murmurs, but he can hear her uncertainty.

They drive in uneasy silence for a long time. The glowing orb of the sun has just sliced out over the distant hills when the exit signs start to look familiar.

 _This is it_ , Will thinks as he quietly directs her toward the college. _If we can all get back to where we belong in one piece, we win._

Even the air is still inside the Explorer as Scully pulls into the parking lot that Will has pointed out and puts it carefully into park. Mulder remains motionless in artificial slumber. William blinks contentedly in a way that suggests his most awake hours are usually long before his parents have risen for coffee, then diligently practices pulling the laces of his tiny shoes until they come untied.

With bated breath, Will and Scully share a glance in the rear-view mirror.

"You still have that keypad?" he asks nervously, suddenly feeling unprepared to make the transition back to his own time. Scully pulls it wordlessly out of her pocket, handing it back to him. Before he can pull back and pocket it, she catches his hand, holding it gently.

Will's eyes flick up in surprise to find that she's still turned in her seat, studying him. "Will you be alright?" Her voice is solemn, her concern genuine.

He gives her half a smile. "That's the hope. Either way, this is my stop. You need to get these two back home safely."

"I'll wait," she says determinedly. "Until you're….gone, or whatever."

Will shakes his head.

"I can't be near him," he says quietly, looking down at William, who blows an impressive raspberry then points at Mulder in the front seat with a sparsely-toothed grin. "Da?"

Will smiles a little. "Yeah, kid, that's Dad. Keep him close, okay?"

Scully opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it again silently, biting her lip and blinking suspiciously glistening eyes at the ceiling.

"I think that's why they stopped trying to pull me," Will continues softly, pretending not to have seen her quickly-banished moment of emotion. "If Travis could have stopped them he would have done it the first time."

Scully blinks again, but this time in confusion.

"He- William...touched me," Will stammers in explanation. "Right before I passed out. In close proximity, the monitor can't differentiate between us. Any number of really bad things could have happened if they'd gotten all the way through."

Will sighs, feeling weak and hurt and completely unsure what will happen to him once he attempts to phase back. "They were willing to kill me to preserve the timeline. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. But no way in hell would they risk displacing or hurting this version of me." He chuckles, tapping William lightly on the tip of his nose, to the result of much giggling. "You've still gotta help invent the time machine, kiddo."

At Scully's sudden look of horror, Will shakes his head, anticipating the unspoken question.

"Don't worry, once I'm gone, your lives continue as if everything that's happened did so as it should have. If this little nerd grows up and decides that he'd best serve humanity by going to beauty school, Mulder won't blink out of existence."

William giggles again, seemingly amused at the thought of becoming a hairdresser, and they both smile.

"Be good for your parents, kid," Will says roughly, his throat suddenly tight as he looks at the tiny young version of himself. After a moment he pushes the door open and gets out of the car.

Between the whole-body ache from being the object of an interdimensional tug of war, and the resulting vertigo, it takes him a moment to steady himself. Before he can protest, Scully is out of the car, pulling his arm over her shoulder and supporting him in a short hobble away from the car, over to a light post in the center of the parking lot that he can lean against. By the time they reach it, Will falls against the post readily, sliding down into a slumped sitting position at its base. His breath comes in shallow pants. This will have to be close enough.

Though he is not very surprised by his rapid decline over the course of the twenty-meter walk, Scully seems alarmed, crouching beside him as she had back at the hospital, gauging his thready pulse and looking down with undisguised concern at his overly enlarged pupils.

"Yeah, I know," he says weakly as he reaches into his pocket for the little keypad. "Not looking great."

Her hand settles over his, and briefly he thinks she's going to confiscate the pad.

"Will, I don't think- I'm not sure your body can go through that again."

It seems as though he's grown even dimmer since the hospital; as if each of the tugs from his own timeline took a little bit away, and now there's nothing left that he can afford to lose.

"It has to," he murmurs, starting to feel unconsciousness call to his weakened body. His eyelids flutter as he tries to keep them open. "We're out of time. If I don't do this now, it's not going to happen. Go."

"You're not going to survive this!" she hisses fearfully by his ear, shaking his shoulder to try to rouse him, to help him find his senses. He brushes her off.

"Maybe not. Take extra good care of the little guy just in case."

Struggling to open his eyes again, Will squints down at the keypad in his hands. The code to reset your life, he'd originally thought of it as he'd memorized the numbers. They come easily now, which is good because he's finding it hard to think clearly. Even his extra-special brain is not equipped to put up with so much abuse.

When the sequence is set, he lets his arm fall to his side, relinquishing all control.

 _Autopilot_ , he thinks fuzzily. _Or maybe self-destruct._

She's still there beside him, so he finds her hand one more time, smiling slightly when she squeezes back.

"Go."

With a whispered curse and something more motherly that he can't make out, she goes. Faintly, he hears the car start to pull away.

Darkness pulls at his edges as the tug starts, vibrating through his body in more jarring fits than it should. He had expected more pain, but is greeted instead with a strange, swelling numbness. Barely capable of conscious thought, he wonders vaguely if he might just disperse through the cracks in the walls of the universe, spread so thin and so far that he simply ceases to be. It would be better than being ripped in half along the the multitude of seams he's already drawn himself in his recklessness. Better yet would be waking up warm next to Tess, kissing her grumbly cheek, tucking her back in, and jogging to the coffee shop for breakfast with his mother.

And better than that… He knows there's something better than that, but when he can't call it to mind, he lets go, drifting instead in something that is starting to feel like contentment.

Halfway across the parking lot, Scully slows the Explorer to a crawl. Through the window beside her unconscious partner's head, her gaze is fixed on Will where he sits leaned against the light post. As she watches, the sensor detects enough daylight from the rising sun to warrant the discontinuation of artificial illumination. The halo of bright yellow light that shines on Will from above blinks out, leaving him alone in the pastel hues of the dawn, hardly more solid than a ghost. Several moments later, he slumps sideways off the post, rolling the rest of the way to the pavement and falling still on his stomach, his face turned away from her.

Her foot starts for the brake pedal, but before she can even form the thought to go to him, Will's unmoving figure flickers once.

Then, he's gone.


	20. Epilogue

Sorry it took me so long to figure out how to wrap this up. I kind of threw myself for a loop with that last chapter.

Anyway, here is the epilogue. I left a lot of things kind of open ended, but oh well. Thanks for everyone for sticking with this story, it was definitely a challenge for me and I think I really *really* need to force myself not to let my next story get so long.

Reviewers, you've been wonderful. As your final critique, let me know if the epilogue is too corny or too angsty.

Honestly, I don't know how it ended up being both, simultaneously. Or how it wound up so long. Oops.

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The house is quiet when she walks up the front porch steps, a gentle breeze stirring the overgrown grasses in a rustling caress against the well-worn planks.

The mismatched furniture and creaky floorboards welcome her as they always have, easing away her anxieties with a warmth and familiarity that still takes her by surprise.

Despite the relatively short saga of fond memories it holds, it still feels like home.

The gun she carries is not yet a relic, though she wishes achingly that it was.

A muffled thump from a room away makes her flinch toward where it lies at her hip, but several moments later, the source of the sound makes himself known.

"Damn it," Mulder mutters as he hobbles into the living room, reaching out to the wall for support with the hand that isn't already clutching a crutch. He catches sight of her and smiles, though his grin has an air of hysterical forcedness that pokes at her just-under-the-surface anxiety.

"I swear, I didn't lose the baby," he says nervously, still smiling as he glances at the hallway to her left. From somewhere down the hall, William's conspiratorial giggle bubbles forth, and his parents both breathe a sigh of relief.

"You little-" Mulder starts toward the sound, grimacing as he stumbles into the wall again. Scully darts forward, catching her partner before he can land too much weight on his injured leg.

He lets her prop herself under his arm, mostly because she's the perfect height for the job, and much cosier than the crutch. When their eyes meet, he banishes her worries with a true smile, subtler and softer, this time reaching his hazel eyes.

"Hey, Scully," he murmurs as she leads him over to the couch. "Thanks."

When he's seated she looks him over, batting away his protesting hands as she pushes up his pant leg to check his bandage for fresh blood.

"I'm fine," he says patiently, one hand absently running over her hair as she inspects him. "I'd be more fine, though, if your son hadn't picked 'ooh, Dad's on crutches!' as a good time to learn how to _run."_

Her eyes flick up to his playfully as she pulls the pant leg back down, having passed him as no more injured than she'd left him a few hours ago.

"So when he's being a nuisance, he's my son?"

An adoring smirk pulls at one corner of Mulder's mouth as he moves it toward her jaw, kissing a gentle line down her neck to her collarbone.

"Mhmm. And when he's being a witty, handsome, intelligent little rascal, he can be my son."

Indulging her partner for a moment, Scully leans into his touch.

"Good thing his mom already has plenty of experience in dealing with those."

Slipping one hand beneath the soft grey cloth of his shirt, she runs her fingernails lightly over his ribs, not missing the shiver of pleasure that dances across his skin.

"Careful," Mulder murmurs against her neck huskily. "How am I going to tell my wife that I lost the kid while a strange woman tried to take advantage of my currently crippled state to have her way with me on the couch?"

Scully smiles into her partner's hair, waiting as it takes him several moments and a couple more kisses along her throat to realize his slip and fall suddenly still beneath her hands.

She can practically hear the gears grinding in fits and starts in his head as he tries and fails to rebut his own unintended proposition with a quick, smooth cover up, diverting her attention from the word he's had on his mind for months.

Despite his sudden rigidity and mental paralysis, Scully pushes on as if nothing has happened, continuing to run her hands across his sides and around his back beneath the soft cotton t-shirt.

"Oh, I don't know," she breathes beside his ear, her voice teasing in mock contemplation. "You could always tell her you'll wash all the dishes this week and see where that gets you."

Unable to feign nonchalance when she's beaten him to it, Mulder pulls back, sitting up and fixing nervous eyes on her face.

"Scully, I-"

"Relax, Mulder." Her words are gentle, but she can still see in his eyes that he's scrambling.

"Really, Scully, I didn't mean to-"

"Yes you did."

His mouth opens again to refute, but his words stop short and he gapes for a moment before forcing his jaw back into place, knowing that he really is caught. _Damned FBI woman._

He hadn't yet figured out how to pose the conversation, but this is far from anything he'd had in mind. But behind that most obvious cause for anxiety, she sees a flicker of some deeper distress, even as he tries to bury it from her searching eyes; fear.

The realization must have dawned on her face, because after a moment, he ducks his head again, trying to hide whatever he has left from her assumptions.

"Mulder."

Careful of the walls she sees going up and painfully cognizant of the unusual role-reversal, she finds his arm and squeezes it lightly. Her other hand trails down his neck to his cheek, gently tipping his face back up to hers.

"You don't really think I'd say no, do you?"

"No, but it's- I mean-" Mulder's brows knit together in frustration at his own inadequacy to articulate.

He grudgingly meets her gaze as he struggles, his eyes somewhat pleading. She's reminded, in that moment, just how much they've both been through, and how it's a miracle that they're still here, alive, together.

"Stay," she says softly, touching his hair lightly as she stands, a subtle reassurance that she's coming back; that she'll always come back. He stays, stranded on the couch without her or the crutch to help him stand.

She creeps down the hall toward the sound of William's giggle, and is rewarded by the quick patter of tiny sock-clad feet on the floor by one of the spare bedrooms.

 _So Mulder wasn't kidding,_ she thinks _._ Their son has apparently been practicing his baby sprints.

Theatrically cornering him by the nightstand, Scully scoops her son up, twirling him in the air and kissing his cheek. William gives a delighted squeal before settling into his mother's arms and consenting to be carried off to his room.

"Mmm-Ma." William's voice is an off-key childish singsong as he pats a chubby hand against his mother's neck, pulling lightly on her necklace.

"Willlll-yum," Scully answers, mimicking his playful tone. "Nap time, kiddo. Mom and Dad need grown-up time."

When William is settled in his room, Scully returns to her partner on the couch, finding him decidedly more put together after a few minutes to organize his thoughts.

When she sits on the couch facing him, Mulder turns to her, bringing his uninjured leg up so they can talk face-to-face, with full transparency. With a tiny smile, he reaches for her hands, reassured to find that they are already waiting for him.

"None of this was ever going to come easy for us, Scully."

He tries not let the words fill him with sadness as he thinks of their history, of everything they've lost and endured, but a dull ache grows in his chest nonetheless.

"You know that you're the only thing that's kept me going for years now," he continues quietly, hoping that she can see the truth of it in his eyes. "And I hope you know that I belong to you and William entirely. I want answers, Scully. I want to know what was done to us, and why. I want to know that whatever is different about our son, he's going to be okay. But I don't want to let them take anything else from us."

He sighs. "Maybe Skinner's right. Maybe we really are safe now. And even if we aren't, what's stopping us from trying to be a normal family, as much as we can?"

He bites his lip, realizing the rant has gone farther than he intended. "We were both content to just be partners for a long time because we knew what we were to each other, but didn't want to broadcast it to the world." Unable to stop himself, Mulder smiles a little. "I'm pretty sure they know, Scully. They've been trying to use us against each other for years."

Scully smiles a little too, but her face is still puzzled. "You sound like you talked yourself into this a while ago. Why the hesitation?"

"I thought-" he bites his lip again, uncertain. "I thought, after everything we've already been through together, it might seem pointless to you. That we don't need to prove ourselves to anyone."

Scully bites her lip. Normally Mulder would not have held back; it simply isn't in his nature. It is definitely a testament to how well he knows her that he would pause to acknowledge thought processes that she'd never given voice to.

"You're not wrong," she finally says, softly. "I don't think we need to prove ourselves to anyone, least of all each other."

The nervous little smile stays plastered on his lips, but his deflation is visible. She can see him formulating a compromising response and stops him with a finger at his lips.

"But… I won't let that come between what we need. What you need….to know that this is really how things should be. I'll give you all of me, Mulder, if you ask. I already have."

Beneath her fingers, his lips creep up into a genuine smile. He catches her hand before she can pull it away, drawing her knuckles back to his lips with a kiss.

"In that case," he breathes, reaching his free hand into his pocket for the little box he'd been carrying around ever since they got home from their flight into the countryside and subsequent hospital visits. _Too close_ , he thinks, and wonders why he hadn't asked her as soon as he'd hobbled in the door three days prior. Maybe he had, but she had chalked it up to the painkillers. Wouldn't be the first time.

Holding her gaze, he can't stop the grin of complete wonderment that spreads over his face. Her lips are only turned up slightly, but he can tell by the sparkle in her eyes that whether she knows it or not, she wants this as badly as he does.

"I've heard it's customary to kneel," he murmurs playfully, enjoying the look that crosses her face as she instinctively puts a hand on his injured leg to anchor him in place.

"Don't even think about it."

He chuckles softly, pulling the little circlet from its velvety case and letting it hover over her ring finger.

"Last chance to run, Scully." He tries to sound like he doesn't really mean it.

Her eyes smolder as she leans into him.

"Never."

She catches his lips with her own as the ring slips into place and Mulder's hands travel back up to her face, stroking along her cheeks as he kisses her softly, breathlessly.

After a moment, they pull back, sharing a watery smile before pressing their foreheads together somewhat shakily.

"Thank you," Mulder breathes. But before he can draw her back to him for a less gentle kiss, a wordlessly delighted squeal interrupts them from the doorway, where William stands, endlessly proud of himself for having escaped the confines of his room.

"William-" Scully starts to chastise, but before either of them can move, his tiny legs have carried him across the room, where he barrels into Mulder, wrapping his little body around his father's leg with a giggle.

"Careful, buddy," Mulder groans as Scully quickly peels the toddler off her partner's injured limb. "Dad got shot, remember?"

Setting him in her lap, Scully turns stern eyes on her son.

"You're supposed to be in bed."

William grows somber immediately, holding his mother's gaze for a moment before deciding that her mind will not be easily changed and turning to Mulder instead with a knowingly innocent, adorable smile.

Mulder chuckles through the receding pain, tapping his son on the tip of his nose. "You really thought you could just say 'nap time', and he'd be out of our hair?"

From over the top of William's head, Scully shoots her partner an exasperated 'don't encourage him' look, at which Mulder immediately assumes a sterner fatherly demeanor.

"Alright, Will, if you're going to be awake, you get to help me fold laundry while your mom makes dinner. Deal?"

Despite the fact that William helping fold laundry will result in wrinkled clothes, missing underwear, and a toddler with socks on his hands, Mulder does his best to make it sound like a punishment.

"Deeel!" William parrots, flinging himself from Scully's arms and headfirst into the laundry basket on the floor.

Glancing back to his partner with a chuckle, Mulder sees that she's wearing an amused smile and a slight air of puzzlement.

"Will?" she queries, and Mulder's mind registers his use of the nickname with a similar sense of perplexity.

"Just kind of slipped out," he says with a shrug. "I guess I'm not going to call him William forever, and despite what would certainly be a priceless look on your brother's face, we're sure as hell not calling him Bill."

Scully scoffs. "Alright, then. Will. But you might need to give me a few years to catch up."

She leans in again, smiling over the sounds of William flinging laundry gleefully around the room.

"Have fun playing sock puppets with the little tyrant," she murmurs against his jaw, kissing along his stubble until she reaches his mouth, pulling his lower lip between her teeth briefly to elicit a faint moan from the back of his throat. "But think your ultimatum through a little better next time, because I'm definitely just going to order a pizza."

Mulder chuckles breathily against her lips, letting his hands rove down her sides for a moment, relishing the feel of her warmth against him after the long week of constant fear and pain.

"Make sure to order a bottle of their finest carbonated beverage, Scully. We've got celebrating to do."

"Root beer it is, then," she says with a coy smile, ducking out of his grasp and retreating to the kitchen.

With a good-natured smirk, Mulder lowers himself carefully to the floor, where his son has already made an impressive mess of the laundry.

"Whoa, kiddo," Mulder protests as William dances just out of his reach with a giggle. "Clean or not, I wouldn't put those on your head."

When the pizza arrives an hour later, Mulder has succeeded in folding everything but the small pile of assorted sweaters that William has passed out on beside the couch. After paying the delivery guy and setting the pizza box down beside the couch, Scully scoops her sleeping son up, letting Mulder plant a kiss on top of his head before carrying him off to bed.

When she comes back, Mulder has lifted himself back onto the couch, where he watches as she sits silently beside him, seeming deep in thought as she twists the ring around in its new home on her finger.

"Scully?" His voice is soft, concerned. Leave it to her to agree to marry him, order a pizza, then shut down completely.

She meets his gaze, but her expression is unreadable. His stomach twists into an uncomfortable knot.

"You've been wearing it for an hour," he says, trying to keep his voice light. "A little soon for cold feet, don't you think?"

She forces a smile, and he sees with another stab of alarm that there are tears in her eyes. Scooting closer, her takes one of her hands, rubbing her palm anxiously.

"Talk to me, Scully," he pleads, suddenly terrified that she has come to her senses- maybe she's realized that to take William and run would be the smart thing to do, after all. He starts to think, desperately, of the things he could say to convince her to stay, but she squeezes his hand back, calming him a little.

"Mulder, stop," she breathes. "For the last time, I'm not leaving you. I'm just- I'm just….having a hard time with some things."

She holds her left hand up, spreading her fingers to show the ring as some kind of talisman, the symbol of a normality they will never fully have.

When she continues, her voice is choked.

"There are so many people we should have been able to share this with, Mulder. My father. Melissa. Your parents. Frohike, Langly, Byers….." She sniffs, lowering her hand back to his. "Everyone we knew is dead or gone or they simply have no idea what we've been through to get here."

Heart aching, Mulder pulls her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles gently.

"I know," he murmurs. "And some day, we'll have to explain it all to Will. But now...we're alive, Scully. We still have our son. We have your mother, who has been loving and supportive for years in the face of all the pain our partnership has brought into her life. We have Skinner, who has been a better friend than I ever would have thought. And as much as Bill might hate me, at least William has an uncle and a cousin."

He smiles a little, his eyes softening as he watches the tiny reassurances warm her a little.

"And who knows….maybe if you consent to throwing a slightly larger party than the basic exchange of legal documents, we can draw the ever-elusive Charles Scully and family out of the woodwork."

With a teary laugh, Scully shakes her head.

"Watch what you wish for, Mulder. I haven't seen Charlie in almost ten years. For all I know, he's living in the mountains growing radishes for a living."

"I'm convinced he can't be worse than Bill. A gamble I'm willing to take for the chance to expand our little family by another Scully or two."

He takes a deep breath. "I know we've lost a lot. It kills me to think that I can't give you more than this, when you'd probably have a handsome doctor husband, white picket fence, two-point-five children and a dog right now if you'd never met me. But even if it's just us, William, and your mom as our witness at the courthouse, this is going to make me happier than I've ever been. Years down the road, when he understands, it's going to make William happy. But if it's not going to make you happy, Scully, I need you to tell me now."

Clutching his hand tightly, Scully shakes her head. "It is, Mulder. I told you before; you are what I want. You and William. Whatever happens, I'll be happy as long as I have the two of you."

The watery smile returns, and this time it seems genuine.

"I might be a little short on those two-point-five kids, but seems like I'll have the handsome husband soon enough. I kind of hate picket fences, but we could always see about the dog."

Mulder smiles a little and reaches out, pulling her to his chest.

"That's my girl," he murmurs into her hair. "Maybe we can get Will a puppy for Christmas."

He feels her relax a little bit as he rubs soothing circles into her back.

"We don't have to worry about it today, Scully. I know everything's a mess right now with me being injured and trying to figure out work and William. Not to mention work for me once I'm back on my feet and not at risk of assassination anymore."

"Not funny." Her voice is muffled against his shirt.

"Sorry. But please don't stress about it. Call me territorial, but I really just wanted some proof….for me and the rest of the world, that this thing we're doing- the baby and the house and the semi-regular lovemaking-" He pauses to smile at her small laugh against his chest. "...That this is real. Honestly, up until the bullet in the leg, I wasn't entirely convinced that this past year hadn't just been an elaborate hallucination- that I wasn't still alone in the desert, dreaming about you two as I died of thirst or something."

Scully wraps herself around him more tightly, flinching slightly at his words.

"It's real," she breathes. "We're here."

"I know," he murmurs, rubbing her back again. "So am I."

And suddenly he thinks he knows the real source of her hesitation. He pushes back from her carefully, searching her teary blue eyes.

"And Scully, I'm not going anywhere," he says quietly, fiercely. "When I left it was to keep you and William safe- at least, it was supposed to be. It was still one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and almost cost us both everything."

Her face crumples a little as she resists the urge to hide it against his chest again, and Mulder knows he's right on target. He takes her face in his hands, gently forcing her to look into his eyes as he speaks, trying to let her see just how much he means it.

"Whatever happens from now on, whatever we have to do….. we do it together, okay?"

She nods, unable to speak as the tears spill over, running in hot tracks down her cheeks. She scoots closer into his lap, careful to avoid his wound as he reaches for her again.

"Come here, Scully," Mulder murmurs as he wraps his arms around her, holding her tight against his chest for several long minutes until the tension bleeds away and their breathing evens out.

Finally he pulls back, tucking wayward strands of hair behind her ears as he gazes down at her face, relieved to see her looking almost content again.

"So, you still gonna marry me?"

Scully scoffs a tiny laugh, unable to stop her lips from pulling up in a wide smile.

"Yes, Mulder. I'm still going to marry you."

Breaking into a lopsided grin of his own, Mulder kisses his partner's forehead.

"That's good, because I don't think I can invest another decade in teaching a woman how to order pizza. From the smell of this one, my efforts have finally paid off."

Scully gives him a playful punch on the arm, disentangling herself to reach for the pizza box.

When they've finished eating, Scully packs the leftovers into the refrigerator before returning to the couch to help her partner up. When they've both brushed their teeth, she helps him to the bedroom, biting back a smile when he insists that he needs her help to get undressed.

Before switching off the lamp, Scully carefully inspects Mulder's wound. After she has wrapped it back up, laid down, and shut off the lights, he notices that her hand comes to rest near his thigh again, worrying over the slowly-healing tissue almost unconsciously.

Catching her hand, Mulder twines his fingers between hers beneath the covers, searching out her eyes in the dark.

"I'm fine, Scully," he breathes. "I'm here. You and the Sock Monster are stuck with me for a long, long time."

"Good," Scully whispers back as she pulls herself closer, tucking her head into the hollow beneath his neck.

Closing his eyes, Mulder resumes he gentle circles he'd traced across her back on the couch, letting the lazy caress comfort them both until their breaths come deeper and more even.

It's odd, he thinks as he starts to drift, how after years of his weary, pained existence, this bliss can come so quickly to feel normal. Smiling as he thinks of their son in the next room, he wraps himself around his partner just a little tighter, drawing a contented mumble from her lips before she settles back down into his arms.

The warm, dark house falls still and silent.

Safe, for now at least, they sleep.


	21. End

Ok... so this is just an author's note, really. I had to write it, because I knew after publishing the epilogue that some people were going to feel a little shortchanged by that ending. I got kind of exhausted by this story toward the end, because I never intended for it to get so complicated as to need a thorough resolution. And by the way, resolution is not my forte.

I tried to write an epilogue that wrapped everything up with Will, but it just wouldn't work. I don't like to force things into writing. I think that when I brought him into this story, he was so new and exciting that I didn't want to give him an end, so I kind of let his storyline just float away into the non-ending of your speculation.

So, I'm going to do a stupid thing, whether anyone wants me to or not. I'm going to write a sequel.

Thanks to my attempts at an epilogue, it is already in progress, but probably not to be published for a while yet, because I like to have at least a few chapters head start.

I want to answer some of the questions that you guys had about the end of this story, because I'm probably not going to address them all in the sequel. I know its been a couple weeks, so maybe nobody cares anymore, but this has been bugging me, so I'm just gonna do it.

Q: How did Skinner get the super-secret-letter-from-Will-that-mysteriously-makes-everything-better? What did it contain?

A: Scully drove through the night/morning, called a favor in to John Doggett to meet her at her mother's house and play bodyguard to Maggie, Mulder, and William, then went directly to Skinner with the letter. Explained the situation as best as she could, including the bit where Will said she and Mulder wouldn't remember him. At this point she goes back to her mother's, sleeps for a few hours, and wakes with a hazy, chaotic memory of the night's events, sans Will. Doesn't have time to be bothered by this, because Mulder's condition has worsened overnight and she has to risk taking him to a hospital. Doggett stays with Maggie and baby Will, and basically doesn't step down from guard duty until Skinner gives the green light for them to head home (with several trusted agents keeping tabs while he ensures their safety)

A: What the super-secret-envelope contained; a list of the names, locations, and affiliations of everyone Will could track down using look-into-the-past technology who had wanted his parents dead. Skinner had to pull some serious strings to get investigations into a couple of these guys, as they were involved in some way with the FBI. A couple were caught and imprisoned on proof of being double agents, a couple were killed in altercations with the field agents sent to bring them in, and a couple got away. Proof of a larger organization or conspiracy against Mulder and Scully was never found, but nobody new came out of the woodwork after Skinner's initial operation was pretty successful. The envelope also contained an actual letter from Will, explaining his position and telling Skinner of their close relationship in his timeline, even including a picture of them at Will's high school graduation (Mulder and Scully made Skinner Will's godfather, in case y'all forgot) Skinner, not having actually encountered Will or any of the time-travel temporal fluctuation nonsense (very scientific, yes) does not forget what he knows. He keeps the photo, obviously not sharing the truth of his source with newly-amnesiac M & S, and remains the only person who really knows what happened that night.

Q: What the hell happened to Will when he disappeared from his parent's timeline?

A: Good question. Part of the reason I had such a hard time wrapping up. At first, I thought I killed him; that he made it back to his time only to die in the lab, or that he had died en route and only his body turns up at MIT, breaking the hearts of Tess, Scully, and Travis. The appeal of that ending is pretty strong because I love drawing plot parallels, and to have paradoxical Will die saving his father who was supposed to have died saving him as a baby would have been a good one. I guess I love Will more than Mulder, because I just couldn't bring myself to do it. That's all I'll say, because you'll find out more in the sequel.

Q: Happily ever after? Family? Will and Tess?

A: I'm dying to write old-ish Mulder and Scully, still together, interacting with their awesome adult son. It will happen. Also, I love the potential for Tess, so she will be around. Gears are turning about how she'll play into this next story.

X

Hope this helps give the story some resolution. Sorry if you got your hopes up for another chapter, but hopefully someone is excited about the prospect of a sequel, because I've already talked myself into it. If you are excited, I apologize for what is going to be a long wait, most likely. I may have to spit out a couple short stories before I can really get into it. If you're not excited, I'm going to pretend you are, because it will help me write.

Ok, it's late. Again, thanks for reading. I owe you guys my sanity, for real.


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